TIGER — The new Georgia football starting quarterback drives an old truck.
It’s a 1984 Ford F-150 that Gunner Stockton got from his grandfather.
“It was literally broke down, parked up at their house and wouldn’t crank,” his father, Rob Stockton, said. “He wanted to get it running, so me and him tinkered with it.”
Gunner still drives it around Athens and, Rob says, home here to this corner of northeast Georgia that borders North and South Carolina. Sometimes it needs a push to get started.
“Could probably own any vehicle he wants,” said Michael Davis, Stockton’s offensive coordinator his senior year at Rabun County High in 2021.
Rob, after all, helps run an automotive dealership that’s been in the family since 1956.
Gunner makes the 74-mile drive home north on Highway 441 in that truck with no air conditioning but with a CB radio installed so he could chat with high school buddies. It has more 300,000 miles on it, although the odometer turns over again at 99,999.
“I would say he’s going to continue driving that old truck no matter what kind of opportunities knock for him,” Rob Stockton said.
The opportunity that’s knocking for Gunner Stockton now is going from backup quarterback to the guy.
That could have been in the cards next fall, but Carson Beck’s season-ending elbow injury sustained in the SEC Championship game changed that.
Instead, the redshirt sophomore will start for the first time since 2021 in the state playoffs at Thomasville.
Here you go, kid, go get it.
First assignment: Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl Jan. 1 in a College Football Playoff quarterfinal.
“Wow,” said Sherrie Stockton, his mother, sitting in her Rabun County High office where she’s been a counselor for 29 years at a school that has an enrollment of about 650.
Rob says Gunner will be fine getting thrust into the spotlight, probably more so than they will.
“We have strong faith,” Rob said. “I think God’s time is a lot better than our time.”
Rob and Sherrie both graduated from Rabun County and so did their two kids. He was raised there. Her family moved back when she was 10.
Rabun County’s estimated population, according to 2023 census figures, is 17,442.
That’s just over a fourth of the 68,400 listed capacity for the Sugar Bowl in the Superdome.
“I think Rabun County is headed to New Orleans,” Rob said. “It’s amazing how many people have told me they are going.”
Five miles from Rabun County High on 441 N past the the Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Moonrise Distillery, Waffle House and fast-food joints is downtown Clayton’s N. Main Street. There are upscale boutiques and restaurants, including Rabun Social, which serves up cocktails and sushi, Hush Cuban Kitchen and Bar and Highroads Tasting Room.
Head on Old 441 South for 2 ½ miles from the school and there’s the Tiger Drive-In theater with a sign that says “See you in March.” A sign for the small town itself says “Time Stands Still in Tiger.”
Walk into the Rabun County Welcome Center off 441 and there’s a wall with photos of famous residents (at least part-time) including former Gov. Sonny Perdue, novelist Lillian Smith, Pro Football Hall of Famer Fran Tarkenton, civil rights pioneer Herman Russell, late Georgia coach Vince Dooley and wife Barbara, Chick-Fil-A president/CEO Dan Cathy, country star Alan Jackson and even Georgia coach Kirby Smart shown helping his father Sonny when he coached at Rabun County from 1995 to 2003.
The Stocktons live in a home on Lake Burton, where the Dooleys and former Alabama coach Nick Saban also have homes.
“Yes, you’ve got the really nice lake houses and that’s great,” said Davis, in his third season as Rabun County coach.
But, he said: “The kids up here are just blue collar, hard-nosed, tough mentality. No sense of entitlement. They believe they get what they work for and earn.”
A sign off the road in front of Oinkers BBQ features the Georgia G and NFL logos: ‘Rabun County! Home of Charlie Woerner’ with a photo of the Atlanta Falcon’s tight end.
“I got to be a ball boy on the sideline growing up and seeing Charlie,” Stockton said in the spring. “He was always a guy I looked up to. Still do.”
Stockton was more a fan of Woerner than Georgia football, his father said.
Rob played safety at Georgia Southern from 1992-95, racking up 322 tackles and is in the school’s Hall of Fame. Gunner wears the same No. 14 jersey number his father did.
Stockton followed the same path from Rabun County to Georgia as Woerner.
The nation’s No. 7 ranked quarterback in 2021 first committed to South Carolina, where Will Muschamp was head coach, Mike Bobo the offensive coordinator and Connor Shaw, brother of then Rabun County coach Jaybo Shaw, on staff.
After Muschamp was fired, Stockton decommitted Jan. 12, 2021 and committed to Georgia 16 days later.
It was another Bobo — Mike’s father George — that played a big role in Stockton’s start in football.
He had worked for Sonny Smart on staff at Rabun County and still lived in the area teaching driver’s education after retiring from coaching.
George’s grandson, Drew, and Gunner were the same age and went fishing with him. Now, Gunner and Drew are roommates.
When Gunner was 6, George Bobo noticed Gunner’s hand-eye coordination and how well he threw the ball. George worked with the Rabun quarterbacks before school and Rob brought Gunner by to throw with him.
Gunner was part of a group of boys that started playing in a north Georgia youth football league with teams from nearby counties.
They went 65-0 from ages 6 to 11 and even beat a team that included a kid from Jefferson named Malaki Starks, now Georgia’s star safety.
“We knew ‘G’ was special,” said April Jones, an Environmental Science and Chemistry teacher at Rabun County whose son Sutton played with Gunner. “He’s a wonderful human being.”
Rob Stockton, who was Rabun’s defensive coordinator while on staff from 2010-2021, said: “He’s been the kid since he was six where they tossed the ball to him and said go win the game for us.”
Gunner Duvall Stockton is named after his great-grandfather V.D. Stockton, who was known as ‘Gunner’ because he was an aerial gunner during World War II in the Air Force. He flew B-17s in the 91st Bomb Group stationed in England. He completed 22 bombing missions and his plane was shot down twice. He became district attorney for the Mountain Judicial Circuit.
Much of the rest of the family is made up of former college athletes.
Sherrie played basketball for Erskine College in Due West, S.C. before getting her master’s at UGA. Gunner’s sister, Georgia, played basketball at Presbyterian before also getting a master’s at UGA. She now works with a Pilates studio in Tuscaloosa.
After games, Gunner drives to visit his grandfather, 83-year old Joe Dinkins, on Sunday mornings at his hunting property in Elbert County.
“He loves the outdoors,” Rob said. “During COVID, he’s watching chemistry class on his phone on a deer stand and killed a deer.”
When he’s not hunting, he may be fishing.
“That is kind of his release and time to get away from competitive juices,” his father said.
Take a look at the Georgia state high school records and Stockton’s name is prominent.
His 177 touchdown passes puts him No. 1 ahead of Trevor Lawrence’s 161. His 13,652 passing yards ranks third.
He finished at Rabun with 4,372 rushing yards and 77 rushing touchdowns—ranking 26th — in four years as starter.
Stockton and Rabun had ESPN national games air his junior and senior seasons.
“The attention he brought to Rabun County and our football program, it’s hard to measure that,” said Jaybo Shaw, Stockton’s coach his final three seasons. “You hope your best player, highest rated recruit is also one of your best teammates. That was absolutely the case with Gunner.”
Shaw said Stockton never missed a team workout, practice or function. Even if that meant turning down competing in the Elite 11 or attend Clemson’s camp.
At Georgia, Stockton’s most extensive playing time came in the Orange Bowl blowout of Florida State last season.
Until the SEC Championship game three weeks ago.
The ABC cameras captured Sherrie Stockton comforting Beck’s mother Tracy after Beck’s injury. They are friends and tailgate together.
“I laugh about how much I ended up on TV,” Sherrie said. “Working at the school, it’s kind of funny. The kids couldn’t believe they saw me on TV. I’m like, ‘Didn’t mean to be.’”
Rob Stockton expected Beck would go back in the game after halftime until he saw Gunner take his first two steps coming out of the tunnel and run onto the field.
“I turned to Sherrie, ‘He’s playing,’” he said. “That’s when it got real.”
Shaw, newly hired as Dawson County coach, was in Rabun County with family watching the game. He said he had tears of joy seeing Stockton lead the Bulldogs to a touchdown drive on the first possession.
“There was never a sense of don’t mess up, don’t mess up,” said Shaw, who has known Gunner since he was 7. “I knew he was going to be prepared for the moment.”
Jaybo Shaw has heard it from Gunner multiples times: “I will be the starting quarterback at at the University of Georgia.”
There have been past overtures for Stockton from other schools that would take him as a transfer but Gunner told his father the same thing: He’s going to start at Georgia.
“He gave us instructions to don’t even call with any other opportunities,” Rob said.
The 6-foot-1, 210-pound Stockton’s SEC Championship numbers don’t jump out — 12-of-16 for 71 yards and an interception and long run of 9 yards — but he helped rally Georgia from a halftime deficit and his run in overtime that ended with such a violent collision that it knocked off his helmet set up the game-winning touchdown run.
There are two sides to Stockton: the one he shows when he’s not between the lines and the one he shows on the field.
“He comes across pretty quiet and very, very humble as a person,” punter Brett Thorson, who spent Christmas last year with the Stocktons in Tiger, said last spring. “Anyone on the team would say if they were going to let their sister date someone, they’d probably choose Gunner.”
His father calls Gunner “a Southern gentleman,” who holds the door open for others.
“He’s a different human on the football field,” offensive guard Tate Ratledge said on his podcast. “Gunner plays with a lot of emotion, which I love.”
That showed in a 38-31 win against Brock Vandagriff and Prince Avenue in 2020. Stockton rushed for three touchdowns, but drew an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on a night he spiked the ball with authority and even got in the face of a defender.
“Don’t mistaken the kind-hearted kid when he crosses the white line on a Friday night or a Saturday,” Shaw said. “He turns into a different person from a competitive standpoint. He’s wanting to rip your heart out.”
Stockton has put in the work. Davis said Rob showed him his Life360 app earlier this season. Gunner got to the football facility at 11 a.m. and left at 11 p.m.
Now all that work will be on display for the player who developed his game back home in Tiger.
“It’s been so neat to see people that you didn’t even know watched football,” his father said, “that are so excited.”
