Todd Monken believing in Stetson Bennett as quarterback still

The relationship between Georgia offensive coordinator Todd Monken and quarterback Stetson Bennett has been well documented. From clips of Monken yelling at Bennett early in his career to Monken in his second year proclaiming that he thought the Bulldogs could win a National Championship with Bennett at the helm despite all the doubters, the two have come a long way in their time together.

Now entering year three in Monken’s quarterback room, Bennett said at SEC Media Days that he feels like he can finish Monken’s sentences most of the time. And from the coach’s side of things, there’s a lot more comfort too. That’s starting to show in the way Bennett is handling situations thrown his way as the starter.

“Being with the first group, being expected to be the starter, it’s invaluable. His confidence level is raised with our confidence in him. I think that is probably the most important thing,” Monken said.

“He has always been in there, so he has always heard how we want to do it. I think he is doing a much better job of in between his reps of carrying the message that we talk about and to make sure we are on the same page,” he added. “I think that is the biggest thing. It is not him talking to receivers in terms of how we would do it. It is that we are all on the same page, carrying the message from our meeting room to on the field. That’s a sign of leadership — going over ‘How did you see it?’ ‘Well, this is how I saw it, this is how we talk about, let’s get it right.’”

Monken surprised many after the SEC Championship Game and before the Orange Bowl by coming out in such strong support of Stetson Bennett. Georgia head coach Kirby Smart had always expressed the confidence but also preached competition. He was worried about getting the best guy in the game to help the Bulldogs win. But when asked back in December, Monken was quick to come to the side of Bennett – even after a less than ideal outing against Alabama – and proclaim that Bennett could lead Georgia to its first National Championship in over four decades. And that’s exactly what he did.

“As we got going in the year – it’s funny because I’ve been on teams where we struggle, we weren’t where we needed to be, and when you’re going up against the same guys, you have no way of knowing really how good you are. You may think you are really good or think you are really bad, but you have no idea when you face the same dudes,” Monken said, thinking back on last season and when he realized how good Georgia could be offensively with Stetson Bennett at quarterback. “After a while, you think ‘We are really not that good,’ or you go for awhile and there are some days in practices that I’m going, ‘I don’t think we are very good.’ When we play other people, I think ‘Actually, we are really good.’ I mean that collectively as a team. There are moments, irrespective of the quarterback, where you think, ‘Okay, we are really good on defense, and we can be really good on offense.’ When that happened, that was a few games in – it sure wasn’t after Clemson – but after a few games, you start feeling that, ‘I think we are going to be pretty good, irrespective of who the quarterback was.”

“Both of them were good players,” Monken continued. “It was never where you thought just this much of the other. So, as we kept going along, we thought Stetson’s mobility gave us a chance. It was a little bit different in terms of who we were going with. At some point I thought we can win it with either one of them at quarterback.”

Georgia will look to win it again with that same quarterback, trying to become the first team since Alabama in 2011 and 2012 to repeat. The Crimson Tide did so both times with AJ McCarron as the quarterback, and if Bennett were able to do so too, he’d certainly go down as one of the best in College Football history, despite the doubters that have followed him every step of the way.