Georgia Football: Stetson Bennett still starting, needs to improve

Kirby Smart is sticking with Stetson Bennett as his quarterback, but he must improve.

Georgia football head coach Kirby Smart has decided to stick with Stetson Bennett as his starting quarterback as he seeks continuity. Bennett has proven to be the leader of the offense and the players on the team have rallied around him. However, there are plenty of areas that he can improve in.

After four games as Georgia football’s quarterback, Bennett has completed less than 60 percent of his attempted 124 passes, getting completions on just 71 of them. According to SEC Stat Cat, Benett’s 7.7 yards per attempt is fifth in the SEC among quarterbacks with a minimum of 100 attempts but is slightly below the 7.95 SEC average. His 43.55 success rate is under the average rate of 47.3, and eighth in the SEC.

Bennett leads all SEC quarterbacks in passes broken up as 14.52 percent of his passes have been broken up by a defender. He also leads the SEC in uncatchable passes with 20.16 percent of his passes being deemed uncatchable. Also, Bennett’s 69.4 passing grade from Pro Football Focus is eighth in the SEC. His passing grade has actually gotten worse each week of the season.

Arkansas – 80.2

Auburn – 69.3

Tennessee – 62.2

Alabama – 57.8

One thing the coaching staff could do to help Bennett’s performance get better would be to roll him out more. In Georgia football’s four games, Todd Monken has only called six pass plays with a rollout attached to them with Bennett at quarterback. On these plays, Bennett is 4 for 6 for 30 yards. As expected, he has a much higher completion percentage on these plays.

Also, two of those completions went over ten yards, so Bennett is not only more accurate on these plays, but also more explosive. Monken must get Bennett on the move more often if Georgia is going to get better quarterback play out of him. Forcing him to sit behind 6-5 offensive linemen is not going to help the situation at all.

Georgia football can win with Bennett at quarterback, but it is imperative that he be put in a situation he can succeed in. Get him out of the pocket on bootlegs and run him out on naked bootlegs. He has the added ability to run, Monken needs to use this to Georgia’s advantage if he expects Georgia’s offense to reach the level it will need to in order to reach Georgia’s lofty goals this season.

Georgia’s offense has the ability to be dynamic, but the scheme must use the abilities of those on the field in order to get the best results. Bennett has all of the elements to be the quarterback Georgia football needs, if used correctly, and if the entire offense is not put on his shoulders. Hopefully, Monken has seen the same thing over the bye week and will call more rollouts on passing plays against Kentucky.

With an extra week to prepare for Kentucky and get things right on offense, there is reason to believe that the play at the quarterback position should be better this week than it was against Alabama.