ATHENS — Austin Peay coach Jeff Faris knew all about Gunner Stockton before the game kicked off on Saturday, and he’s no less a fan now.
The No. 4-ranked Bulldogs beat the FCS-level Govs 28-6 on Saturday, extending their school-record home win streak to 33 games.
Faris, who coached under Chip Kelly at UCLA and David Cutcliffe at Duke prior to taking over the Austin Peay program, was the Blue Devils QB coach when they were recruiting Stockton out of high school.
Faris indicated Stockton shows the same attributes now as he did when Duke had interest in him
“I love that kid, he is a fighter, tremendous leader, you can see the things that don’t show up in the boxscore,” Faris said. “He is a great leader for the Georgia program.”
Stockton’s statistics were impressive enough, as the fourth-year junior completed 26 of 34 passes for 227 yards and had five carries for 13 yards and was not sacked.
Georgia, however, had five plays from the Austin Peay 1-yard line on its final series before halftime and was unable to score.
Faris, understandably, was excited his team was able to hold up in that situation against Stockton and the Bulldogs.
“It’s everything we want to be at Austin Peay, the fight, the grit, the resolve to be able to stop that offense — when it’s all said and done, is gonna be a Top 10 offense, potentially an SEC Champion, potentially a national champion,” Faris said.
“To stop them in that situation, when we know what’s coming, they’re going to run the ball, and we’re probably giving up 40 pounds per defensive lineman to their offensive linemen, but our guys don’t care.”
Faris did care about the Govs inability to score from the Georgia 2-yard line at the start of the fourth quarter when the Bulldogs’ lead was 21-6.
“We had a chance to make it a one score game in the fourth quarter in Athens, Georgia,” Faris said. “But that starts with me.”
Faris said Austin Peay’s impressive defensive showing was a matter of the Govs using different alignments and fronts.
“Our guys know exactly what to do and they played tremendously hard,” Faris said. “Coach (Greg) Jones mixing up those looks, not making it easy, not just being in stagnant positions.
“The size mismatch , you could stand on the field and see it, it was crazy …. I thought we had a good plan going in and thought the guys executed the plan.”
Faris said Georgia didn’t make things easy, either; UGA rolled up 421 yards of offense despite not having a play longer than 23 yards.
“Georgia, Coach (Mike) Bobo does a phenomenal job offensively,” Faris said, “gave us some things that maybe we hadn’t practiced as much.”
Faris revealed Georgia and Austin Peay agreed on the early start time leading up to the kickoff.
“We came here to ay a football game, so we would have played at 8 in the morning,” Faris said. “I thought we came out and did some really good things.”
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