Stetson Bennett: Six years of college down the drain?

Article content

Six years of college down the drain?

Article content

Move over, Bluto. Apparently, you’ve got company as someone who attended university for two-plus years of study, beyond the requisite four needed to obtain a basic degree anywhere, without ever graduating.

In the awesome, fictitious Seventies movie classic Animal House, John Belushi’s Bluto character had a mid-semester 0.0 grade-point average in his seventh year at Faber College.

Purportedly, Bluto’s reported real-world competition for such indistinction is Stetson Bennett IV.

Reports from south of the border say Bennett, quarterback of the two-time defending NCAA top-tier football champion University of Georgia Bulldogs — and now an NFL rookie with the Los Angeles Rams — left school earlier this year without ever having graduated, after six years of post-secondary education.

Article content

Article content

Now age 25, Bennett entered the University of Georgia way back in 2017-18 as a walk-on and did not play that season. He spent the 2018-19 school year at Jones College in Ellisville, Miss., and starred there, before transferring back to U of G in 2019-20. Bennett backed up Jake Fromm that season.

Then in COVID-shortened 2020-21 Bennett backed up D’Wan Mathis and JT Daniels.

Typically, NCAA players can play a limit of four seasons in their sport, at a university or college, within a five-year window. But all players nationwide affected by the pandemic were granted a fifth season of eligibility within a six-year window.

In Bennett’s fifth year, 2021-22, he eventually took Daniels’ starting job — then dazzled, leading the Bulldogs to victory over Alabama in the NCAA top-tier championship game.

Article content

This past football season, his extra fifth of playing after high school, Bennett again quarterbacked the Bulldogs to an NCAA title, once again earning championship-game MVP honours to boot.

Apparently, though, Bennett was not quite the star in the classroom.

NCAA, Southeastern Conference and school rules, as listed online at the University of Georgia’s website, state, in part, that any fifth-year senior (i.e., Bennett entering the 2021-22 school year) “must have earned at least 105 credit hours during previous four years with at least 18 earned during the previous regular academic year; must have declared a major; (must have a) cumulative GPA (grade point average) requirement of 2.0 each semester; and 75% of degree must be completed for (student-athletes returning for the fall semester).”

Article content

Stetson’s 2022 season bio at the school’s website indicated he was majoring in Learning Design and Technology.

Reports since the weekend have speculated that Bennett did not graduate with even a simple BA from Georgia after six years of post-secondary study — five at Georgia, one at the community college.

Maybe Bennett just kept failing that one last course he needed to get over the top, over the past two school years.

Neither Bennett nor his camp disputed these reports by mid-afternoon Tuesday.

You know it’s embarrassing when Cardale Jones — the Ohio State quarterback who in 2012 infamously said about his school work at that fine university, “We ain’t come to play SCHOOL, classes are POINTLESS” — tweeted Sunday, above a photo of Bennett, as follows:

“Buddy definitely wasn’t playing school!”

Maybe Bennett liked to jam two pencils up his nose for fun.

[email protected]

@JohnKryk

Check out our sports section for the latest news and analysis. Care for a wager? Head to our sports betting section for news and odds.