Kirby Smart may have painted himself into a quarterback corner

For weeks, Georgia head coach Kirby Smart insisted that Stetson Bennett was the quarterback who gave the Bulldogs the best chance to win. Is that reality, or part of Smart’s reality distortion field that has him painted into a corner as the College Football Playoff matchup with Michigan looms?

The questions about how Kirby Smart handles a quarterback room have come up before, and his decisions have come back to haunt him before.

But never has it done so in such a grand flopping fashion as it did in Georgia’s unexpected blowout loss to Alabama in the 2021 SEC Championship Game.

The fact that there’s even a quarterback discussion going on for a team that has three 5-star quarterbacks on the roster seems daft.

But here we are.

Smart had most of the college football world convinced Stetson Bennett was the quarterback who would lead the Bulldogs to the elusive promised land after 41 long years. And why not buy into his belief? Georgia was undefeated, having run roughshod through their entire schedule without even so much as a close call after the Week 1 victory over Clemson.

When Stetson Bennett took over for the injured JT Daniels in late September, the feeling was it was just temporary until Daniels was healthy.

Temporary became long term…became permanent.

Every week, the calls for JT Daniels to resume his rightful place as starting quarterback lessened, and the trust in former walk-on and future ESPN 30 for 30 film subject Stetson Bennett grew.

What was lost in all the euphoria of the glorious Georgia football season was that Bennett was a great story, but not a great quarterback. His deficiencies had been masked all season long by a defense that gave up less than seven points a game, and a running attack that carried him on their shoulders.

Leave it to Nick Saban and the Crimson Tide to rip that mask away.

Bennett was exposed against Alabama for what he is – a good quarterback who can (pardon the expression) manage a game and an offense without having to put the team on his back. He’s not the guy you want under center when it comes time to sling guns in a shootout against one of the best offenses in the nation.

That quarterback is…or was…JT Daniels.

Kirby Smart should mark his own words about being elite.

When Kirby Smart uttered the words “You’re either elite, or you’re not” after the opening week victory over Clemson, he should have put them on a sticky note above his quarterback roster.

JT Daniels is elite. Stetson Bennett is not.

Now Georgia has to face another high-powered offense and elite quarterback in the Orange Bowl. What if the defense falters again? And even if the Bulldogs do advance, are they going to be up to the task of a rematch against Alabama?

Conventional wisdom says that it might be time to let JT Daniels sling it in the final two games of the season, but…and here’s where it gets tricky…is he the same JT Daniels who has yet to lose a game as Georgia’s starting quarterback? Is he mentally and physically prepared for the pressure of the College Football Playoff?

If you base your answer on what we saw of Daniels in his mop-up duty appearances against overmatched Missouri and Charleston Southern, you’d have to say probably not, in all honesty.

Daniels looked uncomfortable, even off-kilter. His usual pinpoint accuracy was nowhere to be seen, and he just didn’t have command of the offense. The muscle memory was all but gone and the guy who owned the field when he stepped on it in the past looked pensive.

The lack of first-team reps in practice and then only 23 live game pass attempts after leaving the game against Vanderbilt on September 25 have put Daniels in a difficult position, and with him, head coach Kirby Smart.

Why Daniels hasn’t practiced as much or played since being declared fit is a point of discussion that has multiple angles. Rumors about Daniels being in Kirby Smart’s doghouse to mental fatigue have come forth, but publicly, the story is that Smart simply thinks Stetson Bennett is his man.

I’ll pause for you Georgia fans having Jake Fromm flashbacks.

Smart could opt to make the change, but it may only make things worse. He could stick with Bennett and hope his defense and running game can come to the rescue again, but that could produce the same results we saw against Alabama.

Neither is a comforting choice.

Smart’s loyalty to his starter, while admirable, has proven disastrous and now the entire nation will be peeking in to see what happens next. An entire season with the best team Smart has ever assembled could come to an abrupt end because a wrong QB decision was made…again.

Tom Petty once sang, “You got me in a corner. You got me against the wall. I got nowhere to go. I got nowhere to fall.”

Kirby Smart is living those lyrics. He’s painted himself into a corner with his quarterback philosophy, and now he’s got nowhere to go.