Gunner Stockton doesn’t drive a car worth posting on Instagram. His 1984 Ford F-150 has 300,000 miles, no heat, no air conditioning, and a lot of character. He owns 14 cows back home in Rabun County. He asked for them one Christmas and woke up to find them on his family’s property.
Stockton is also the quarterback of the Georgia Bulldogs, following in the footsteps of former teammates by guiding the program to the College Football Playoff.
Gunner Stockton’s Long Learning Curve as Georgia Backup Turned QB1
When Stockton arrived in Athens in January 2022, he joined a quarterback room that included Stetson Bennett IV, the walk-on-turned-folk-hero who would lead Georgia to back-to-back national championships. For a four-star recruit from a tiny northeast Georgia town, it was less about competing for snaps and more about absorbing everything he could.
He learned. Then Carson Beck took over in 2023, and Stockton learned some more.
“Carson is the perfect example; he’s shown resilience, and, heck, he’s waited his turn,” Stockton said earlier this year. “It’s just a privilege to take from him and get to learn from him.”
The lineage matters. Bennett taught Beck how to prepare like a starter while waiting behind a starter. Beck passed that same approach to Stockton. It’s a chain of quarterbacking discipline that now stretches across four consecutive SEC title game appearances.
Stockton had limited passing attempts in his first three seasons at Georgia. He could have transferred. He could have complained. Instead, he watched film like he was QB1 every week, studied how championship quarterbacks handle the weight of expectations, and waited.
“Last year it was crazy, I was preparing each week like I was a starter, just trying to watch a lot of film and be ready,” Stockton said. “It was hard the whole year just having to make myself watch film through each week, not playing. Then when the time came, I was ready.”
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The time came sooner than expected. When Beck went down with an elbow injury in the 2024 SEC Championship Game against Texas, Stockton inherited a 6-3 halftime deficit with a conference title on the line. He led Georgia on a 10-play, 75-yard touchdown drive to open the second half and orchestrated the game-winning overtime possession.
“The players believe in Gunner, they love Gunner, the juice that he brought, and the passion and energy,” Kirby Smart said afterward. “It was like an added boost of energy, they were fired up.”
Stockton Turned Patience Into Production as Georgia QB in 2025
The 2025 season has turned Stockton from a capable backup into a legitimate star.
He’s thrown for 2,691 yards with 23 touchdowns against just five interceptions while rushing for 442 yards and eight more scores. He finished seventh in Heisman Trophy voting. In the SEC Championship Game against Alabama, he completed 20 passes for 156 yards and three touchdowns in a 28-7 win that earned him MVP honors.
The advanced numbers tell a deeper story about his clutch gene. Stockton has completed 87.5 percent of his passes in the fourth quarter this season, throwing six touchdowns with zero interceptions. When Georgia trails, he’s thrown for eight touchdowns without a pick.
On fourth-down passes, he’s 5-of-6. On third-and-3 or less, Stockton has converted 13 of 17 rushing attempts for first downs. On fourth-down carries, he’s 4-for-4.
Stockton has Georgia football in his blood. His grandfather, Lawrence, was a Georgia alum who was arrested after rushing the field following an upset win over No. 8 Auburn in 1986; he’d been sprayed with fire hoses for his trouble. Lawrence died of a heart attack in a Jacksonville parking lot after Georgia’s overtime loss to Florida in 2010. Gunner was six years old.
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“Every time we go to Florida, I really want to beat them bad in Jacksonville,” Stockton told ESPN’s Mark Schlabach this fall.
He beat them. Georgia has now won five straight against Florida.
The connection to the Bulldogs runs even deeper than his own family ties. Stockton was trained as a youth quarterback by George Bobo, father of current Georgia offensive coordinator Mike Bobo. The threads connecting him to this program don’t end.
Georgia faces Ole Miss in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1, a rematch of October’s 43-35 comeback victory. Last year’s Sugar Bowl ended in a 23-10 loss to Notre Dame in Stockton’s first career start, a game in which he threw for 234 yards but couldn’t overcome early mistakes.
Now, he’s no longer viewed as an inexperienced quarterback or a supposed weakness. He’s a proven winner with a full season of starting reps and a resume full of must-watch moments.
“My message to Gunner and really to any quarterback that I’ve ever coached is you have to be Gunner Stockton,” Mike Bobo said. “You can’t try to be Carson Beck. You can’t try to be Jake Fromm, Stetson Bennett. You have to be Gunner Stockton.”
Three years of watching. One year of proving. Now he gets another shot at New Orleans, another chance to add his own chapter to a quarterback lineage built on patience and preparation.
The truck still doesn’t have A/C. The cows are still waiting back in Rabun County. And Stockton is still playing like he’s been ready for this moment his whole life.
