The backup quarterback competition was one of the most intriguing things to watch during G-Day last weekend. Gunner Stockton will obviously be the starter, but his backup is up in the air for anyone to grab.
Potentially the most unlikely player to win that job is Hezekiah Millender. He was ranked outside of the top 700 recruits in the 2025 recruiting class, so that by itself is enough to be overlooked at Georgia.
But all it took was one G-Day performance for Kirby Smart to start comparing him to none other than Stetson Bennett.
“I think the scout teamwork he did last year is so valuable,” Smart said via dawgnation.com. “People think that, like, well, if you go down there with the offense, you get better. Well, if you go down there with the defense, you get better. I mean, I saw Stetson Bennett grow up down there. I saw some guys go down there and really grow up.”
Hesekiah Millender could become the next great Georgia quarterback
Now it's clear that Smart doesn't think he is as good of a player as Bennett was, but he sees a lot of similarities in how Millender has grown throughout his time in Athens. And considering the kind of player Bennett became, that is pretty exciting to hear.
Millender finished with the best stats out of all the backups at G-Day as he completed nine of 15 passes for 103 yards and a touchdown. This performance alone won't cement himself as Stockton's backup, but it certainly will get him into that conversation.
“I mean, Buddha (Millender) had some days that you were like, man, Buddha’s playing good,” Smart said. “Then the two Ryans [Puglisi and Montgomery] had days that they really played well. I don’t know that any of the three of them were so consistent to be able to say, well, he’s the clear two, or he’s the clear this. It just wasn’t that way.”
Summer workouts and fall camp will go a long way in determining who Stockton's backup will be. Ryan Puglisi is still the most likely to earn that job, but the lowest ranked recruit out of all of Georgia's quarterbacks is making a strong case that Smart can't ignore.
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