ATHENS — Georgia fans could be forgiven if they weren’t entirely sure who quarterback Hezekiah Millender was before Saturday’s spring game.
For starters, coach Kirby Smart often refers to him as “Buddha” during news conferences. The redshirt freshman didn’t throw a pass in his first season in Athens, nor was he a big-time recruit. Millender, who played for local Clarke Central High School, was initially committed to Boise State before flipping to Georgia late in the 2025 recruiting cycle.
Coming out of G-Day though, it’s clear Millender is a name to know at the quarterback position, which Smart said does not have a clear backup to starter Gunner Stockton.
“I mean, Buddha had some days that you were like, man, Buddha’s playing good,” Smart said. “Then the two Ryans (Puglisi and Montgomery) had days that they really played well. I don’t know that any of the three of them were so consistent to be able to say, well, he’s the clear two (on the QB depth chart), or he’s the clear this. It just wasn’t that way.”
Saturday would be classified as a good day for Millender. He completed nine of his 15 passing attempts for 103 yards. Unlike Montgomery, Colter Ginn and Bryson Beaver, Millender didn’t have an interception.
Millender scored a touchdown on an option keeper from 1 yard out. Of Georgia’s quarterbacks, he is easily the most comfortable with his legs.
As for his arm, a highlight came when he fired a pass to freshman tight end Brayden Fogle for 32 yards, Millender’s longest completion of the day.
Millender didn’t get a chance to show what he could do during a game last year, but he still found a way to improve in his first year at Georgia.
With Puglisi as the team’s backup last season and Montgomery still recovering from a knee injury he suffered in high school, Millender worked as the scout team quarterback. He got a lot of reps against Georgia’s starting defense in practice, which paid off Saturday.
Millender doesn’t have quite the same story as former Georgia quarterback Stetson Bennett — college football doesn’t allow for walk-ons anymore — but Bennett took advantage of the scout team when he was a young quarterback.
Smart brought up Bennett as a point of comparison when he was asked about Millender after Saturday’s scrimmage.
“I think the scout team work he did last year is so valuable,” Smart said. “People think that, like, well, if you go down there with the offense, you get better. Well, if you go down there with the defense, you get better. I mean, I saw Stetson Bennett grow up down there. I saw some guys go down there and really grow up.”
Few could’ve foreseen Bennett becoming Georgia’s quarterback. Even former Georgia offensive coordinator Todd Monken recently admitted he didn’t expect it for Bennett early on in his career. Yet Bennett kept getting better and eventually won two national championships with Georgia.
In 2020, Bennett took advantage of an unstable Georgia quarterback room to start five games. Jamie Newman opted out of the season, JT Daniels wasn’t cleared to play and D’Wan Mathis proved ineffective when given the chance to start.
With Stockton at the helm, Georgia isn’t searching for the same answers at quarterback this season. It knows what it has in the veteran signal caller who started every game last season.
But the battle behind Stockton is still very much up in the air. As Millender showed Saturday, he’s every bit as capable as Montgomery and Puglisi as far as being Georgia’s backup quarterback.
“You see glimpses of that ability when he’s out there playing quarterback,” Smart said. “And I’m like, man, I’m so glad that he had to stand in there and make throws with rush coming at him because he made a couple really good plays today.”
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