Georgia football QB Gunner Stockton is one day away from making his first start of his college career. And what a better time to have your first start than in the Sugar Bowl during the College Football Playoff against an elite program like Notre Dame.
There is a lot of unknown surrounding Stockton simply because the only meaningful snaps he's played in his career were in the second half of the SEC Championship game against Texas, but what Georgia fans saw in those 30 minutes was pretty encouraging. But still, the fact that Stockton has only played those 30 minutes in his career is cause for concern from Georgia's perspective.
But Georgia doesn't recruit QBs to their team if they aren't great players, so what makes Stockton a good quarterback? During a press conference on Monday, Kirby Smart shared three things that he believes makes Stockton an exceptional QB.
"The No. 1 thing a quarterback has to have is decision-making skill," Smart shared via 247sports.com. "He makes really good decisions. No. 2 thing for a quarterback is accuracy. Not necessarily arm talent, but accuracy. He has accuracy. Decision-making is a skill. Accuracy is a huge skill. Athletic ability and talent probably takes over third. He has those traits. He has all the intangibles in terms of toughness and character."
Kirby Smart clearly has a lot of faith in Gunner Stockton
Is there really any better set of qualities that a QB could have? Strong decision-making, accuracy and talent and athleticism are three things that every quarterback in the history of football strives for.
Now it's great that Smart sees these qualities in Stockton, but he does still need to show them on the field. Sure he did that against Texas about a month ago, but that was for such a short amount of time. Stockton needs to prove it on the field for longer than that before anyone leanrs anything constructive about the type of player he is.
We will find out in just over a day if these traits apply to Stockton on the biggest stage of his life or not, but as long as Smart has confidence in him then Georgia fans should too.