Gunner Stockton has guided Georgia to a No. 4 ranking in the College Football Playoffs. The Dawgs are 10-1 in his starts. He’s in the Heisman conversation.
His father, Rob, has seen it all from the stands. He just hasn’t heard one lick of it.
Every time the Dawgs have the ball, he pops his earbuds in and clicks the “UGA 14″ playlist that Gunner’s older sister, Georgia, saved on his phone.
It is one song.
“I’m a big fan of that song ‘Thank You, Lord’ by Thomas Rhett,” Rob Stockton said. “I listen to it on replay while we’re on offense the whole time. So all I hear is that song.”
When Stockton launched that crucial fourth-down pass in Knoxville, his father didn’t hear Neyland go silent. He heard Rhett’s chorus about summer nights on a porch swing and getting down on his knees.
About being humble. Stumbles. For Momma. For friends.
“Every time we go on offense,” Rob Stockton said. “I can’t stand to hear anybody, even if it is just a sigh, or an ‘Aw, he was open’ or whatever. It kind of gets your blood boiling.”
“I put that on, play it as loud as it can play and listen to that song over and over.”
Rob was the defensive coordinator for Gunner’s teams at Rabun County High. He’s also in the Georgia Southern Hall of Fame for his career as a hard-hitting safety.
Rhett’s tune settles the nerves he and his wife, Sherrie, are feeling. Both were college athletes. They are competitive folks, but being the parents of QB1 at Georgia is not for the meek.
“It truly kind of says what my wife and I are feeling,” Rob Stockton said.
One of the first jerseys he bought Gunner was a No. 54 for NFL All-Pro Brian Urlacher. The vision was a linebacker until some pretty smart folks told Rob he was “crazy” if he didn’t think Gunner was a quarterback.
Stockton prepares to lead Georgia against Georgia Tech on Friday. It is the first matchup since 2014 in which both teams have been ranked.
“I never knew how fun it was to be the backup quarterback’s parents,” Rob Stockton said while laughing. “You don’t know that until you become the quarterback’s parents.”
“It is proof that you care when you are nervous and anxious. It’s to another level when your child is the one doing it at that level.”
The Stocktons stay off social media, but when they see numbers like 10 million-plus viewers are watching an ESPN game, it gets real.
“Everybody watches the quarterback,” Stockton said.
Stockton’s parents weren’t anxious when they played. It is different watching their son.
“Sherrie might look more nervous but I may be the duck on the pond that looks calm on the water but under the water their feet are pedaling 100 miles an hour,” Rob Stockton said.
The moments have come fast.
“Definitely the favorite moments are just the scoreboards at the end of these games,” Rob Stockton said. “He’s done a great job of keeping the scoreboard with Georgia being ahead of the opponent, the main thing.”
He’s appreciated some first downs that No. 14 picked up with his arm or legs. The kind where the average fan wouldn’t recognize how much it actually meant. The development of this offense has also stood out, even amid key injuries.
“My favorite thing has been the spontaneous celebration for whoever does well in any game,” Rob Stockton said. “The freshman [Bo] Walker is scoring his first touchdown. Or Gunner throwing a touchdown. You watch those 11 on the field celebrating and it is just a beacon of light on this team. You just see it’s not pre-rehearsed or fake. Just spontaneous, sincere, fun celebration.”
Colbie Young said something about the Georgia quarterback Rob loved.
“He just wants to be perfect,” Young said. “We always tell him nobody’s perfect in this world, Gunner. You’ll be alright and he’s like ‘Nah, I gotta get it. I gotta do this again,’ and his confidence and wanting to be great just instills in us that we’ve got to be better.”
Georgia QB Gunner Stockton has excelled in his first season as the starter this year. He’s led the Dawgs to a 10-1 record heading into the Georgia Tech game this week. (Jeff Sentell/ DawgNation) (Jeff Sentell/Dawgnation)
Gunner Stockton has “unleashed hell”
That dagger against Texas also stands out.
“Unbelievable excitement just to see your child reaping some satisfaction,” Rob Stockton said. “As a family, we don’t really take a ton of time to celebrate sometimes. It is just on to the next thing. But that moment, when he crossed the goal line, you could see through his facemask and see that ‘hell yes’ moment.”
That “hell yes” line brings this back to Gunner’s high school days when Rob aptly described his hopes for his son’s career. It combines everything the family creed, if there was one, might adhere to about living right and playing right.
“A goal for our family has been for both of our kids to love the Lord,” Rob Stockton said. “I know that will seem like a cliché so much now, but we pray that they truly love the Lord, but do not have to tell people about it. Do you know what I mean by that? Where they will just look at you and can tell that you love the Lord. By your actions and then just your spirit. Not their words.”
“They will know you by that when you are in the classroom or on the field. They just sense that something special about you. Not because of you. But a greater deal there. Who you follow in life.”
It did not mean a meek spirit.
“With all that said, I have begged of him to be that when he is outside the white lines,” his father continued. “The kindest. The gentlest. The best friend. Opening doors for women and ‘yes ma’am’ and ‘no ma’am’ and that’s him. Thankfully. But when you step across those white lines, then that is time to unleash hell. Be that person.”
Stockton has unleashed 2,465 passing yards and 27 touchdowns of hell on opponents this season. He’s done so while maintaining a 71 percent completion rate in his first year as a starter.
His high school coach, Jaybo Shaw, saw Stockton set Georgia state records, throwing for 13,652 yards and 177 touchdowns. He ran for another 77 scores.
This season brings to mind Stockton’s senior year. He threw 55 touchdowns to just one interception. He ran for 15 more scores. Shaw was a 3-star coming out of high school who started at Georgia Tech and Georgia Southern.
Shaw is now at Dawson County. He’s won 58 games in seven seasons as a head coach, but he’s now the ‘Guy who coached Gunner Stockton in high school’ for the rest of his career.
“I’m so far beyond good with that, words cannot describe it,” Shaw said. “If there were a way, it would be the amount of love and how proud I am. Do you know what I mean? You sit there watching TV and just catch yourself smiling. Grinning. Just so happy for him. This is all pretty friggin cool, man.”
When Stockton went Superman for his TD at Auburn, it made Shaw think of a similar play against Pierce County. That clutch throw to London Humphreys is now the best ball he’s ever seen him throw.
That’s coming from a coach who saw Stockton attempt 1,273 passes and average 4.79 touchdowns per game in high school.
“Hands down,” Shaw said. “Not close. That throw right there in that situation. It was fourth down. Opposite hash. To the far pylon. The Humphreys guy was the only one who could make the play. Just elite elite quarterback play right there, man.”
Prince Avenue coach Greg Vandagriff (left) and Rabun County coach Jaybo Shaw share a laugh prior to their game on Friday night. (Jeff Sentell/DawgNation)/Dawgnation)
Georgia quarterback Gunner Stockton (14) dives for a touchdown during the second half of an NCAA college football game against Auburn, Saturday, Oct. 11, 2025, in Auburn, Ala. (AP Photo/Butch Dill) (Butch Dill/Associated Press Photo Stream)
Did we see this coming with Gunner Stockton?
While trying to find the right amount of perspective to sum up what DawgNation has been seeing this fall, two words come to mind.
Labels. Signs.
If one’s vocation is to trumpet who’s a 5-star this and that, there is a proper reflection of the hypocrisy there. There is an awareness of how that star ranking now stamps every player who comes to Athens to play for Georgia. Right or wrong.
These players come in with expectations for what they can be in Athens. Georgia doesn’t think that way. The stars don’t decide who can and cannot play for the staff. The practice field does. The intangibles do.
Stockton has more 5-star intangibles than the cattle herd he’s famous for.
When Stockton said this year he can’t lie down on the field after a big hit from a defender, his father told him that. He felt it gave the opponent extra juice when they saw the quarterback lying useless on the ground.
Shaw describes another benefit.
“I’ve seen it since he put on a helmet,” Shaw said. “I’ve been a part of those conversations of hearing Rob say that. What it does for us at that time, as a team at the high school level, you just knew Gunner was going to get up. It is basically an adrenaline shot to everybody on his team. That’s another, probably the proudest moment as a coach. The boy is just tough. I say boy, I mean a grown man.”
“He cares about his teammates. We all know Gunner is not the most outspoken. He’s very reserved, but I remember telling you this when he was coming out of high school. He doesn’t say a whole lot, but the way he communicates to his teammates about how much he loves them. He’s so freaking tough. He’s going to get up because he doesn’t want to do anything to affect his team negatively. He’s going to sacrifice his body. It is all about the team. I’m just proud now that it continues on the biggest stage.”
The way Stockton affects his team, just by the way he handles himself every day, might be his biggest strength.
Most forget that Stockton was originally a 5-star recruit. He didn’t have the prototype size. He also didn’t attend the Elite 11 and showcase camps.
While he missed opportunities to earn his fifth star back, it was because he had promised his team that he’d attend every spring and summer workout. Stockton was also part of a movement among his senior class that ensured they cleaned the locker room every week so the custodian didn’t have to do much heavy lifting.
Those were signs of what he could be.
There were tells from other elite prospects who played with Stockton while preparing for high school ball. Former Alabama OL Tyler Booker said he’d consider Georgia strongly for the chance to play with Stockton.
He made that big of an impression.
There was a 7-on-7 practice. When Stockton walked to the field, he was the same “aw shucks” self we see now in all his UGA interviews. Zero flamboyance. Yet his peers were drawn to that.
Players don’t react to each other the way they did that morning. Not even the 5-star QBs. Some of the things said weren’t politically correct, but it was the honest appreciation you hear between water breaks when football players talk.
Malaki Starks, now in the NFL, has shared a story from when Stockton was playing safety. Starks had the ball in his hands. Stockton drilled him. It was such a jolt that Starks briefly considered retiring from football before he got to high school. The boys were probably about 10 years old then.
That’s the grit Stockton showed barreling for the goal line in the SEC Championship Game. But the SEC doesn’t reward quarterbacks on Saturdays with just Hallmark backstories. They must be able to spin it. Stockton could always throw it.
That goes back to when he was six years old, being coached by the father of Georgia offensive coordinator Mike Bobo.
Georgia QB Gunner Stockton has excelled in his first season as the starter this year. He’s led the Dawgs to a 10-1 record heading into the Georgia Tech game this week. (Jeff Sentell/ DawgNation) (Jeff Sentell/Dawgnation)
Gunner Stockton: The 3rd or 4th grade arm story
Stockton, when he was still in the eighth grade, went to a football camp at UNC and won the longest throw contest. He did so with a performance that topped several older QBs who would not only start Power 4 ballgames but also make the NFL.
That was Gunner being Gunner.
When he was basically in the third or fourth grade, he was working out with George Bobo. That’s the father of the current Georgia offensive coordinator.
“We’d meet here at 6:30 in the morning,” George Bobo said in 2021. “We’d start throwing at 7:30 so he could go to school afterward.”
Bobo trained him until he was in the eighth grade. He kept a video on his phone that Rob sent him of Gunner throwing the ball when he was very young.
“Here comes a bullet,” George Bobo said back in August of 2021 while describing the video. “ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzssssssssssssttttttt. I used it to show young kids all the time after I trained him. I said, ‘This is God’s gift,’ and he had a gift in doing this stuff. Then he’s worked to refine his gift.”
Bobo pointed out pylons and marks on the field at Rabun County High School.
“He could throw it past that third one when he was six years old,” George Bobo said.
The eyes did the quick math with the yard markers. That was 30 yards.
“He could already throw it there,” Bobo said. “He was different and was also a baseball player. If you look at a quarterback, you really throw the ball with your lower body. If you look at his lower body, it is strong.”
His youth teams were hard to beat.
“My best memories of Gunner were watching his teams when they were six years, seven years, eight, nine years old and were undefeated.” George Bobo said in 2021. “As he grew older, the ball went further down the field.”
According to Bobo, they won more than 60 games in a row. His favorite moment was watching Stockton play Habersham Central in middle school. He was at safety.
“Habersham had big backs,” Bobo said. “They were running them up in there. Gunner is hitting them for no gain on the line of scrimmage. That’s my favorite story because he was killing them. I used to say we could use him at linebacker. They had big ‘ol backs. He was just striking them at the line.”
There was a college offseason when Shaw was back in Rabun.
“It was fourth grade,” Shaw said. “Maybe third grade. But I know for a fact it was at Frank Snyder Stadium in Tiger, Georgia, where I saw him throw it 35 yards in the air. Just hum it. I vividly remember it to this day.”
“George Bobo was there. Rob [Stockton] was there. We were messing around, but I remember coming back and seeing my Dad and my family. We just happened to be on a ballfield. I remember looking at Coach Bobo or my Dad and just being ‘Goodness gracious alive’ about the way Gunner could already throw a football.”
To place that in perspective, an elite high school prospect can throw it 50 to 60 yards on a rope. Stockton threw it 35 yards two or three years shy of middle school.
Bobo, one of the most unsung head coaches of the last 40 years in Georgia, had retired then. He was enjoying all the recreational activities he could find around Lake Burton. He cooked a lot of the bream he caught for the coaches at Rabun, but was also Stockton’s QB trainer.
“Here’s why I know Gunner will be successful in college,” Bobo said in August of 2021. “To be a good quarterback, you have to have more than an arm. He’s got the arm. You have to be able to play and forget the last play. You have to be able to see what’s going on and understand it. I’ve seen a lot of quarterbacks that could throw, but very few can sit back there and understand when that safety rolls this way, that’s the way I’m going now in this direction. I used to tell him about his eyes, hands and feet. Your eyes tell your brain. It automatically reacts. He has the ability to see. That’s a great attribute that separates a lot of people.”
“A lot of quarterbacks see the pass rush and see the people. I told him you have to be able to feel it and smell it. If you watch the good quarterbacks, they are always looking downfield, even when they are running and avoiding somebody. Mike used to say ‘Dad, you can always make the first person miss by moving in the pocket one way or the other,’ because they are coming full-speed. You can just sidestep that, but Gunner has that innate ability to be able to understand and be able to see, and then he’s an unbelievable competitor. He hates to lose.”
Bobo saw him make throws that earned offers on the spot.
“The best throws I’ve seen him are of him standing there and the defender was right on him,” George Bobo said. “He never flinched before he hit him and made the throw. Now, that’s what I see as the best ball he throws. He’s not looking at the rush. He knows he’s going to get hit and still makes the throw. That’s the real quarterback that can do that, that doesn’t let his feet get happy, so he can’t throw with his lower body.”
He’s made many like that this fall. That level of toughness has endeared him to DawgNation.
Georgia quarterback Gunner Stockton (14) reacts after scoring a four-yard rushing touchdown during the fourth quarter against Texas in their NCAA football game at Sanford Stadium, Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025, in Athens, Ga. Georgia won 35-10. (Jason Getz / AJC) (Jason Getz/AJC Freelancer)
Can Gunner Stockton play better?
Shaw described what he’s seeing out of Stockton right now.
“He just doesn’t get his team in a bad situation,” Shaw said before the Charlotte game. “I think he’s only thrown one or two interceptions, maybe? The way he operates the offense. He doesn’t put them in a bad position. I’m assuming watching it, knowing Coach [Mike] Bobo and Coach [Kirby] Smart, he’s probably got a lot on his plate pre-snap, in and out of plays, in and out of protection, and just being able to sustain drives. A punt is not a bad play sometimes. Not turning it over. That’s probably been the most impressive thing, being in some of those places like Tennessee and Auburn.”
“Those are two of the elite elite road games you are going to play across the county. The way he performed in both games under high-stress conditions. I just think that man is built for wearing the red and black and running out there with a ‘G’ on his helmet and playing in stressful situations.”
Stockton made plays against Marshall and Austin Peay, but it seemed like he was holding back. Like he’d been coached to just take what’s there and not make a mistake. That was the right call. He didn’t need to press to do anything in those games.
When the Dawgs got down in Auburn and Tennessee, he had to grow up quickly.
“It almost forced him to just go play if that makes any sense,” Shaw said. “It was time to go rip it. No other choice. His team had to go. I think those two games almost jolted him back into a mode that ‘I’m going to rip it’ and ‘I’m going to live with it’ and ‘I’ve got good players around me’ and ‘I’m going to do what I’ve always done’ and to me he cares so much about his teammates, it almost seemed like it handcuffed him a little. He didn’t want to do anything to hurt the team. Then he got in that situation at Tennessee.”
“They had to go respond right off the jump, and boom, he marches them right back down. He’s down at Auburn. It became just another ‘Let’s rock and roll’ moment. Those two games just cut him loose and internally gave him a lot of confidence. After knowing him for so long and coaching him for so long, I’m guessing it just all freed him up.”
Shaw feels DawgNation hasn’t seen Gunner’s best yet.
“There’s another whole stratosphere because of the level that he’s playing at and this being the first full year as the starter and playing against the best competition in the world,” he said. “The anticipation. There’s a whole other level he’s going to get to with more reps, and when that clicks, we’ll see it. Then, just from an arm talent standpoint. We all know he can throw it with the best of them, as far as yards and how far. Now it is the next step of layering the football over defenders. Anticipating and throwing to a spot. All of those things are going to come the more he plays.”
“I feel there’s a whole other level he’s going to get to, and he’s obviously on his way there with one of the best quarterback coaches in the country with Mike Bobo at Georgia.”
When that time comes, maybe his Dad will have another song on the playlist.
Georgia QB Gunner Stockton has excelled in his first season as the starter this year. He’s led the Dawgs to a 10-1 record heading into the Georgia Tech game this week. (Jeff Sentell/ DawgNation) (Jeff Sentell/Dawgnation)
Georgia QB Gunner Stockton has excelled in his first season as the starter this year. He’s led the Dawgs to a 10-1 record heading into the Georgia Tech game this week. (Jeff Sentell/ DawgNation) (Jeff Sentell/Dawgnation)
Georgia quarterback Gunner Stockton (14) reacts after talking with teammates during the closing minute of their win against Texas in their NCAA football game at Sanford Stadium, Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025, in Athens, Ga. Georgia won 35-10. (Jason Getz / AJC) (Jason Getz/AJC Freelancer)
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