Florida DC Brad White sees shades of Stetson Bennett in Gunner Stockton

ATHENS — Brad White has seen a lot of Georgia football from the coaching booth, including one game against Bulldogs’ quarterback Gunner Stockton that left a mark.

“He’s a winner, he’s tough,” said White, who was Kentucky’s defensive coordinator from 2018-2025. “I had to face Stetson Bennett for all those years. (He’s) very similar in terms of, just you know, nothing rattles them.”

If anyone has an appreciation for walk-ons, it’s White, a former Georgia walk-on. White actually turned down an offer to play at Yale to be a preferred walk-on at UGA in 2000.

White transferred after one season to finish his playing career at Wake Forest, moving on after Jim Donnan was fired.

White knows Stockton will move on from an outlier three-turnover performance in a 27-24 loss to Auburn and be dialed in for Georgia’s 3:30 p.m. game against Florida on Saturday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

“You have no doubt that he’s going to be able to put that behind him, and everybody on that offense believes in him that he’s going to make the right decision,” White said. “That’s what you want as a QB.

“You can sense, when you watch the film — he takes a big hit, but he throws a deep ball down for a touchdown. The O-linemen all run and grab him. He’s jumping up and down. They rally around him. He can make all the throws.”

But, White says, there’s more to Stockton than just his eye-popping quarterback efficiency, which ranks second in the nation.

“I don’t think people give him enough credit for how good he is with his legs, like how many plays he makes,” White said. “He really comes alive in the red zone, short-yardage situations. If you don’t do a good job with the pocket, he’ll be able to scramble and make some things happen.”

White witnessed that firsthand last season, when Stockton scored the first two touchdowns on runs of 7 and 6 yards in a 35-14 win against White’s Kentucky defense.

And Stockton has a supporting cast that White is concerned with, too, from a talent a match up standpoint.

“You look at (Dwight) Phillips and (Nate) Frazier … and then you look at that tight end group, and the wide receivers don’t get enough credit for how talented they are,” White said. “We faced Texas last week, and they’ve got sort of known-named receivers. I don’t think people quite know the names yet (at Georgia), but they will — they’re talented, they’re fast, they’re all willing to block, they understand the scheme …. And they go deep.”

White noted Georgia’s big offensive line has created enough of a push for the Bulldogs to rank second in the nation in yards per carry.

The tight ends, White indicated, have something to do with that as they dictate defensive personnel.

“Depending on some of the personnel sets they get in, you can’t play small (with extra defensive backs),” White said. “We talked about their tight end group — they’re big, they’re athletic, they create some mismatches.

“So, you know they play heavy in 12 (two tight ends), and they get into 13 (three tight ends) personnel, and so it’s hard to play with a small nickel (defensive back). They’ll just road grade you, so you got to get big to match them.”

White’s Kentucky defenses held Georgia under 17 points three times in the past six meetings, including in 2024 when the Bulldogs pulled out a narrow 13-12 win.

And now he has a Gators group on defense that he believes in and wants to see evolve on Saturday.

“Obviously, the Florida-Georgia game is huge, it’s different, and so, yes, do I want to win? Absolutely,” White said. “(Georgia is) one of the few teams in this league that I have not had a chance to put one in the ‘W’ mark. So that’s a huge deal.