“You know where the Air Raid got its name, right?”
Sean Pender is about to tell a story. He’s been doing that a lot lately, as the Stetson Bennett story has taken hold. Pender was Bennett’s high school head coach, so the past few weeks have been a whirlwind of memories and vindication. An ESPN crew was in Pender’s office earlier that morning, filming a segment for this week’s “College GameDay.”
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Now Pender, at the end of another interview, wants to tell another story, one that seemingly doesn’t have anything to do with Bennett, born years after the events took place.
But maybe it has everything to do with Bennett.
By now, most know Bennett’s journey over the past four years, beginning with his arrival at Georgia in 2017 as a walk-on: Wowing the powerful Georgia defense as the scout-team quarterback, when he mimicked Baker Mayfield in the run-up to the Rose Bowl. Leaving for a junior college in hopes of earning a scholarship offer from a four-year school. Committing to Louisiana, only to be called back by Georgia the night before signing day. Serving as the top backup to Jake Fromm in 2019, and when Fromm left the Bulldog coaches seeming to do everything in their power to avoid giving the job to Bennett.
And yet here we are. Who knows how long the story will last, but as long as it does it’s an amazing one.
So you call Pender, and the cheer in his voice is obvious as he speaks from his office at Brunswick High School, the job he took the year Bennett graduated from Pierce County High School. That’s where Bennett racked up awards and wins, but no FBS scholarship offers.
“If Stetson was 6-1 or 6-2, he would’ve been the No. 1 quarterback coming out, or if not the No. 1 then among the top quarterbacks coming out of his senior class,” Pender said. “He had all the tools. He had all the numbers. He went to all these quarterback camps. He always rated out really high, he was just never able to win one because there was someone else with a bigger name that had a bunch of stars behind their name where Stetson didn’t have any.”
Pender tried to tell coaches to ignore Bennett’s height and look not only at his feet but his hands, which were big enough to grip and rip a football. Pender lobbied other coaches hard, including Mike Leach and Hal Mumme, who he knew well. Because Pender played at Valdosta State for both men in the 1990s. Yes, here’s where the Air Raid enters the picture. Though back then nobody called it that.
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Mumme was the head coach, Leach was the offensive coordinator, Houston’s Dana Holgorsen was one of his position coaches. As a junior, Pender led Division II in receptions, but that offseason Mumme recruited a junior college receiver, made Pender room with him and teach him his position, but also try to beat him out. Pender grudgingly went along with the challenge.
“I did fantastic,” Pender said. “I caught 89 balls my senior year.”
Two decades later Bennett watched his Georgia coaches recruit transfers Jamie Newman and JT Daniels, and give the starting job to D’Wan Mathis, ignoring the guy who had been there for years. Todd Monken, the new offensive coordinator, had even told Bennett at one point that he didn’t see him as the starter.
Bennett, speaking after the win at Arkansas, alluded to some frustration about it, calling it “tough,” but his actions — sticking with the program and being ready when he was called upon — spoke for themselves. Watching from afar, Pender again wasn’t surprised.
“You know this saying: The cream always rises to the top,” he said. “Stetson’s been in the quarterback room. He knew he was better than some of these guys. But he knew he had to consistently prove it, over and over again. D’Wan Mathis, there’s no doubt about it that he’s going to be a good quarterback. JT Daniels has proved he’s a good quarterback. But that isn’t going to scare Stetson.”
Pender sees the same quarterback now as he did then. The gunslinger. The guy who wasn’t afraid to throw it downfield or over the middle. If he throws a bad ball, if he throws a pick, but the read on the next play is there again, he’ll take another shot at it. He will throw all over the field and has confidence in himself and his receivers.
“He has that gunslinger mentality,” Pender said. “He’s always had it.”
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But also a quiet kind of cockiness, which appears to have endeared him to teammates.
“Stet is confident. He’s confident in himself. He’s a competitor,” Georgia left tackle Jamaree Salyer said. “You could just see that on the drive when he came in there at Arkansas. He’s in there having fun, completing third-downs (passes), getting first downs. I mean Stet has fun competing. For me, just being able to protect a guy like that, and being able to listen to a guy like that and look up to a guy like that, there’s nothing more you could ask. Just a guy that doesn’t like to lose. Jake (Fromm) was very similar to that. Guys don’t like to lose.”
It also helps Bennett that he’s athletic. He can run himself out of trouble and into good plays, as he’s shown several times already, diving for the pylon twice this season, for a touchdown against Tennessee and for a two-point conversion at Arkansas.
Georgia cornerback Eric Stokes, who won track titles in high school, said Bennett is “easily faster than me.”
“Stetson is pretty fast.,” Stokes said. “He’s quick. And his height is a big advantage, so he hides behind our big O-line.”
Could there also be some familiarity with the offense? Monken is new but he’s known to implement some concepts of the Air Raid, having replaced Holgorsen as Oklahoma State’s offensive coordinator in 2011. When Pender became a high school coach he installed the Air Raid, which Bennett ran at Pierce County, with RPO concepts added in. Pender isn’t sure how similar it is to Monken’s system.
Plus, the Air Raid that Leach, Mumme and company ran at Valdosta State has roots and sprouts everywhere in college football. Many of the concepts originated from LaVell Edwards’ offense at BYU in the 1980s. And Pender read a Bill Walsh book that detailed a lot of the same formats as the Mumme offense, which took it to a whole other level.
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And it’s at this point in the conversation that Pender brings up that intriguing question.
“You know where the Air Raid got its name, right?”
Here’s the story, as told by Pender as well as Leach in his book “Swing Your Sword”: A Valdosta State fan brought an air raid siren to games. The athletic department told him to stop, so the siren was taken to a nearby fraternity house, where it continued its blaring. When Mumme and Leach went to Kentucky in 1997 someone referred to them bringing “that air raid offense” and the name has stuck ever since.
The kicker: The fan who brought that air raid siren to games was Ken Pender, father of then-freshman receiver Sean Pender. The same man who coached Stetson Bennett in high school.
“I’m enjoying every minute of it,” Pender said. “This is all pretty cool.”
(Top photo: Perry McIntyre / UGA Athletics)
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