Ahead of title game, there’s mutual admiration between TCU and Georgia’s Stetson Bennett
TCU linebacker Johnny Hodges isn’t afraid to speak his mind when it comes to the quality of an opponent, or lack thereof.
The Navy transfer also isn’t afraid to give props when he recognizes a good player. Ahead of Monday’s national championship, Hodges isn’t delivering his opponent any bulletin board material.
In fact he admitted he had admiration for Georgia quarterback Stetson Bennett.
“Stetson is probably my favorite player to compete against,” Hodges said. “He has such an underdog story. He’s a little bit older and gets a little bit of haters. You know the quote, you live in the spotlight long enough you become a villain. That’s kind of his story.”
Bennett turned down multiple Division I offers coming out of high school to walk-on at Georgia. Then he transferred to a junior college before eventually returning to Athens.
After being a partial starter in 2020, Bennett took over full-time in 2021 over the injured J.T. Daniels, who TCU faced this season at West Virginia. Bennett led the Bulldogs to their first national championship in decades and returned this season and has actually gotten better.
The former walk-on is playing with more confidence and swagger on the field. That’s quite the transition for a player who was told he’d be the reason your team couldn’t win a championship.
That’s at the root at why a player like Hodges respects Bennett so much. Hodges was told all his career he wasn’t good enough for the Power Five level and now he’s a key catalyst for TCU’s defense. He can relate to Bennett’s story and can’t wait to take the field with him.
“It’s going to be awesome playing against him and him trying to throw passes over my head,” Hodges said. “It’s going to be an honor competing against him. He’ll keep his boys unrattled and calm. It’s dangerous going against someone that’s been at the bottom because they’ll never stop fighting. It’s a tremendous obstacle ahead of us.”
Quarterback Max Duggan is another that was impressed with how Bennett carried himself. They met and hung out most of the Heisman Trophy weekend in New York City the weekend of Dec. 9.
“I got to spend quite a bit of time with Stetson,” Duggan said. “I thought he was pretty cool.”
Duggan and Bennett have slightly different journeys to the 2023 national championship game.
But there’s plenty of similarities between them.
There has an intense love for their universities that caused them to make selfless decisions that many probably wouldn’t. I mean who would turn down legitimate scholarship offers to walk-on? Who who would really want to stay at a school after losing their starting job?
Bennett and Duggan are built differently and that’s why they hit it off so quickly in NYC.
“Max is an awesome dude,” Bennett said. “But he’s an A-plus dude. He works hard. All those things. But I think he’s the heart and soul of that team. I hadn’t really watched him play, but I’ve watched his interviews, and I’ve watched just how he carried himself up in New York.
“And he’s a leader. And there’s something to be said for both his story and my story and the fact that we’re here in the end.”
Georgia coach Kirby Smart also can see the similarities between the two quarterbacks.
“He understands defenses. I think he’s very smart,” Smart said. “There’s no defense he’s going to see that he hasn’t seen before. You’re not tricking an experienced quarterback, very similar with Stetson.”
Both Bennett and Duggan are playing the best ball of their career, as is Hodges. In a game that will be full of future NFL draft picks and former five and four star recruits, it’ll be the underdogs that could have the biggest impact on the final outcome.
For now, Bennett still holds onto the CFB crown and it’ll take the combined efforts of Hodges, Duggan and the rest of the roster to figuratively rip it from his hands.
This story was originally published January 5, 2023 at 5:00 AM.
