Sugar Bowl: What Georgia has in Gunner Stockton

TIGER, Ga. (AP) — Former Georgia quarterback Carson Beck rolled around campus in a sleek Lamborghini that was reportedly worth more than $300,000. The head-turning sports car was part of a name, image and likeness (NIL) agreement with a high-end automotive company.

In stark contrast, the Bulldogs’ new starting quarterback, Gunner Stockton, drives around town in a 1984 Ford F-150. With a four-speed transmission and an odometer that’s been clicking past 300,000 miles, the two-tone truck lacks modern conveniences like air conditioning, power locks, and power windows.

For Stockton’s family and friends in the small mountain town of Tiger, Georgia (about 90 minutes north of Athens), the old pickup seems to be the right choice.

“I think that sums him up,” said Stockton’s uncle, Allyn Stockton. “He’s just a simple guy. He’s really a simple guy.”

On December 7, Stockton was introduced to college football fans during the second half of Georgia’s 22-19 overtime win over Texas in the SEC Championship Game. After Beck was injured on the last play of the first half, Stockton came on to help the Bulldogs recover from a 6-3 deficit.

With Beck undergoing season-ending surgery this week to repair the elbow on his throwing arm, the No. 2 Bulldogs’ College Football Playoff hopes now rest partly on Stockton’s right arm and legs.

The third-year student is expected to make his first career start on New Year’s Day (8:45 p.m. ET, ESPN/ESPN+) against No. 7 Notre Dame in a CFP quarterfinal at the Allstate Sugar Bowl in New Orleans.

Stockton’s family and friends say he has been preparing for this moment most of his life.

“The people who saw him play in Rabun County weren’t surprised at all,” Allyn Stockton said. “They knew this was coming.”

IT WOULDN’T TAKE someone who longs to get to know all of Tiger’s residents; The population was 422 at the last U.S. Census. There is still a drive-in theater in the one-stoplight town. The Goats on the Roof roadside attraction on Highway 441 used to sell everything from Amish food and furniture to homemade fudge and ice cream. And yes, visitors could feed goats tending the lawn on the roof.

The Stockton family settled in Rabun County in 1956 and opened a car dealership; Stockton’s father, Rob, still works there. Gunner was named after his paternal great-grandfather, VD Stockton, who was shot down twice while serving as an air gunner aboard B-17s in World War II and was known to his friends as “Gunner.”

Both of Rob’s parents attended Georgia and his late father, Lawrence, also graduated from the university’s pharmacy school. Lawrence was an avid Bulldogs football fan and took his sons to many home games and some on the road over the years.

Rob and Allyn were not with their father when Georgia beat No. 8 Auburn 20-16 on the road on Nov. 16, 1985. The aftermath of this surprising victory became one of the most bizarre moments in the history of the Deep. South’s Oldest Rivalry,” because Auburn police used water cannons on Georgia fans who stormed the field. Finally, the police also pointed the hoses at the Bulldogs fans in the stands.

Jack Walton, Auburn University’s police chief at the time, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he didn’t question what his officers were doing. “My only regret is that we didn’t get them all,” he said.

Lawrence Stockton was among 38 people arrested that night. He told the AJC that he never stepped onto the field. According to Lawrence, he was handcuffed and taken to a waiting area because he asked a police officer why they were spray-painting the stands. He spent four hours in jail until his wife released him on bail.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have gone and asked why they were spraying in the stands,” Lawrence Stockton told the AJC. “But you can only observe and endure so much before you become a concerned citizen.”

Three days later, Allyn Stockton was sitting in a classroom at Rabun County High when a friend showed him the newspaper article. He didn’t know his father had been arrested.

“Father’s portrayal was probably different from reality,” said Allyn Stockton, a Rabun County attorney. “His thing was, ‘Hey, it’s one thing to turn guns on people on the field. ‘”

VD Stockton was the area’s district attorney for more than a decade, and his son’s disturbing the peace charge was soon dropped.

Many years later, a stepbrother sent Allyn Stockton another article that included a photo story of the 1986 Auburn-Georgia game, which is still remembered today as the “Game Between the Pants.” In one of the photos he spotted his father in the field.

“I mean, he’s on the field,” Allyn Stockton said. “One guy has a baton and about three or four (police officers) are on his heels. As far as I know, Dad wasn’t on the field, but he obviously gets beaten up on the field.”

On October 30, 2010, Lawrence Stockton died after watching Georgia lose 34-31 to Florida in overtime in Jacksonville, Florida. He walked back with friends to a crowded area outside the stadium and collapsed from a heart attack. He was 63.

ALLYN AND ROB shared their father’s love of football. Rob was an All-American safety at Georgia Southern and is a member of the school’s Athletics Hall of Fame. Gunner’s mother, Sherrie, a guidance counselor at Rabun County High, was among the all-time basketball leaders at Erskine College in Due West, South Carolina. Gunner’s sister Georgia played basketball at Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina.

But Gunner is the best athlete in the family. When Gunner was about 6 years old, Rob asked Rabun County High School assistant coach George Bobo if he would start working with his son. Bobo was a longtime high school football coach in Thomasville, Georgia. His son Mike is currently Georgia’s offensive coordinator.

George Bobo moved to the mountains of northern Georgia at the urging of then-Rabun County High coach Sonny Smart, who is the father of Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart.

The first time George saw Bobo Gunner throw a football, he said, “Holy shit, you gotta make him a quarterback.”

Stockton was the quarterback of teams that went 65-0 in the North Georgia Youth Football League. He didn’t lose a game until seventh grade at Rabun County Middle School. The next season, as an eighth-grader, he played quarterback for the high school’s JV team.

Stockton was a four-year starter at Rabun County High. As a senior in 2021, he completed 71.3% of his pass attempts for 4,134 yards with 55 touchdowns and one interception. He also ran for 956 yards and scored 15 scores. In four seasons, Stockton amassed 13,652 passing yards with 177 touchdowns and 4,372 rushing yards with 77 scores.

Stockton broke Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence’s state record for career touchdown passes and Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson’s state record for career total yardage.

Stockton scored seven more touchdowns than current Detroit Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs, who had 70 at Dalton High School from 2017-19.

When Stockton wasn’t playing sports, he tended livestock, hunted deer and bear, and fished for trout in mountain streams. He fished and waterskied at nearby Lake Rabun, where former Alabama coach Nick Saban and other coaches had vacation homes. Shortly before Stockton turned 16, he asked his parents for cows for his grandmother’s farm. For Christmas they gave him four cows and a bull.

“The old farm had terrible fences,” Rob Stockton said. “Everyone in the county helped him and knew they were his when they left the fence. We got emergency calls and they said, ‘Your cows are outside, put them up.’ Or people would stop and just put them up.”

Stockton once went gator hunting with a troublesome trapper in Florida, along with his uncle Allyn, Bulldogs safety Dan Jackson and former tight end Cade Brock. He told his family that he wanted to beat the Gators in Jacksonville because that’s where his grandfather died.

IN FRONT OF HIS JUNIOR During the high school season, Stockton committed to play at South Carolina, where Mike Bobo worked as offensive coordinator. After Bobo went to Auburn, Stockton transferred to Georgia. When he enrolled, Bobo worked as an analyst for the Bulldogs.

Stockton redshirted at Georgia in 2022 and attempted 19 passes in four games last season. He had only taken the field in three games before appearing against the Longhorns.

“He’s never been on the sidelines in his life,” Rob Stockton said. “His goal this year was to be the biggest supporter and supporter of Carson Beck that he could be.”

In the second half of the SEC Championship, Stockton’s time finally came against Texas. He led the Bulldogs on their first possession with a 75-yard touchdown drive, then threw a bad interception that gave the Longhorns a 16-1 lead on Bert Auburn’s 37-yard field goal with 18 seconds left in regulation. Compensation helped.

With the Bulldogs trailing 19-16 in overtime, Stockton lowered his shoulder pads at the end of a run at the Texas 4. He was hit by Longhorns safety Andrew Mukuba, whose heavy tackle sent Stockton’s helmet flying.

Stockton held onto the ball for a first down and Trevor Etienne ran into the end zone on the next play to give the Bulldogs a win.

“It was brutal to watch,” Rob Stockton said. “Seeing the replay on the scoreboard was worse than watching it live. But seeing him reappear didn’t bother me too much.”

Sherrie Stockton hasn’t watched a rerun of the hit and “has no plans to do so.”

The Bulldogs had more than three weeks to prepare Stockton for the game against the Fighting Irish. Regardless of what happens in the Sugar Bowl, his parents don’t expect him to stray far from his roots.

Stockton will still make the 74-mile drive from Athens back to Tiger in the same 40-year-old truck his grandfather once owned. Maybe it even needs a few neighbors to push it away if it doesn’t start.