#1: Billy Bennett
Drum roll, please…And the best kicker in Georgia history is Billy Bennett who kicked for the Dawgs from 2000-2003.
Bennett is the epitome of a ‘Damn Good Dawg.’ He’s from Athens and helped the Dawgs win their first SEC Championship under Mark Richt in 2002.
His junior year in 2002 was record-setting for Bennett and his most memorable moment came in that year against Alabama when Bennett kicked the game-winning field goal in Tuscaloosa with 38 seconds left to play. That win helped keep the Dawgs hopes alive to play in the SEC Championship.
I remember that play vividly and it will go down as one of my favorite moments as a young Dawg fan because Bennett proved that he had ice in his veins that game.
Of the 28 kicking records that Georgia keeps up with, Bennett sits at the top of nine different ones. He still holds SEC and NCAA records as well. Bennett ties with Kevin Butler for most consecutive games kicking two or more field goals. He went 27 games straight, and he and Butler sit at the top of the NCAA record.
Bennett scored 131 points in 2003, and that tops the Georgia record for most points by a kicker in a single season. That number is still the SEC record as well. He initially set it in 2002 when he scored 130 points.
He holds SEC records in career field goal attempts with 110 and single-season field goal attempts with 38 in 2003. The single-season attempt number is also the NCAA record.
Bennett made 87-of-110 field goals in his four years as a Dawg. Those 86 field goals are both still SEC and NCAA records. In 2003, he made 31 field goals setting an SEC, and NCAA record after initially setting it as a junior with 26 made field goals in 2002.
He ties the SEC record for most field goals made in a single game as well. Bennett made six field goals against Georgia Tech in 2001.
His records go on and on, but you get the point that he did a lot while he was at Georgia. Bennett is one of my favorite Dawgs, and I remember the field goal in Tuscaloosa along with the three field goals he made in the SEC Championship game that helped Georgia win 30-3 over the Razorbacks.
Bennett is the best kicker to come through Athens, and until someone beats his stats, I don’t know that anyone can convince me that someone else is better.
Butler comes in a close second, but Bennett was the first kicker I remember that I respected and understood what it meant to be a kicker in the SEC.