TUSCALOOSA, AL — When it was over, when his head coach had said he never is calm, and when the kid who had grown up 75 miles from Georgia had yet again delivered as the calm before, during and after the storm, Gunner Stockton made an admission.
He’s trying to get better.
On his postgame handshakes.
With opposing quarterbacks.
“I'm trying to do better with that,” Stockton said after Alabama counterpart Keelon Russell waited on Stockton’s victory-interview to congratulate him. “Trying to go shake the other quarterback's hand, no matter what.”
In the AI era where fake is real and real is fake, Stockton is unassumingly, unapologetically, real.
Oh, so, too, is Georgia, which is bound
to reach the top of the US LBM Coaches Poll this Sunday, Oct. 11, morning, mere hours after a captivating 20-17 Bulldogs win at Alabama.
On a day that further exposed pretenders — not to mention college football’s great talent dispersal in this age of NIL — Georgia showed it owns the best quarterback, fastest defense, most complete team.
Has a pretty damn good dog for a coach, too, in Kirby Smart.
Even if he won’t calm down with a veteran signal-caller in Stockton who carries 29 games’ collegiate experience, 21 of them starts and 18 of them wins.
“I'm not calm, ever, with any quarterback,” Smart told USA TODAY Sports after the game. “I was talking to my mom (Sharon) earlier (Saturday). I got perspective on things now that, win or lose this game, I'm going to be judged on my kids, my wife, my mom. What kind of man am I? And I look at that and a lot more than I look at what somebody’s going to say about a record against Alabama or against the SEC or national championships.
“That’s just not my motivation anymore. I’d rather make memories for my kids and my family and my team and my coaching staff. Made great memories today. Regardless of whether we won or lost this game, we’ve got to go win the next one.”
Georgia remains unbeaten, with rebuilding Auburn calling between the hedges Saturday, Oct. 17, before the team’s lone open date. Because this team is hearkening memories of Smart’s back-to-back national title-carriers from the 2021-22 campaigns.
Stockton’s efficient, 18-for-22 passing for 249 yards included one touchdown to chain, with the one he scored on the ground on the third quarter’s opening possession.
He had, dare it be said, a Heisman (finalist) moment in the third quarter with a deft dart down the right sideline, hauled in by a falling-backwards Craig Dandridge Jr. for 30 yards. Stockton's 14-yard scoring scamper two plays later boosted the Bulldogs back on top.
“He’s a killer, cold-blooded killer,” Georgia safety Khalil Barnes, a transfer from Clemson in his first season as Stockton’s teammate, said. “I don’t think any moment gets too big for him and proud to have him as my quarterback.
“He don’t need (hype). He got us. We trust him, we love him enough so the media don’t got to.”
Despite outgaining Alabama 455-346, the Bulldogs nonetheless needed a late-game stand — not to mention an egregious missed pass interference call inside Georgia’s 5-yard line that would have given the Tide fresh downs inside the 20.
Smart issued blanket instructions to defensive coordinator Glenn Schumann: Win with the bones hanging out of the defense’s mouth as the Tide faced third-and-10 at the Bulldogs 34. Georgia responded with a sack of the precocious Russell, whose evasiveness, legs and maturity beyond a half-dozen college starts kept the Tide in the game to that point.
“If we're aggressive, then we lose swinging,” said Smart, guiding a team to a 6-0 start for the sixth time in his 11 seasons atop his alma mater, “and we get the ball back [if Alabama did score], and we had a chance to win.
“We didn’t come here to play ‘lose.’ I didn't come here to play to go to overtime. Came here to win, and he called up a timely blitz that knocked them out of field goal [range].”
Alabama punted. It never touched the ball again.
“I knew when they punted, our offense had started to take the anaconda effect,” Smart said, “and it was wearing them down. And we had a chance to run it out, and that happened.”
The head of that snake, of course, was Stockton, constricting emotions and the opposition in another win.
Placid in postgame, even as celebratory shouts and tunes echoed through the walls of the Georgia locker room and into the cramped media space.
“Maybe not always (calm), but I try to be,” Stockton told USA TODAY Sports. “Just try to be calm in the chaos.”
Thus, chaos is everywhere else in college football.
The calm again resides in Athens, Georgia, with college football’s best team.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Chaos is everywhere in college football. But not in Georgia, Gunner Stockton
