Three Logan Gray questions:
(1) How can you not laugh at that part of the fan base that was denigrating him after the G-Day game and is now freaking out because he’s contemplating his future at Georgia?
(2) Hale is reporting that, “From what I’ve been told, he truly wants to play receiver now and that’s not much of an option at UGA apparently.” Does that mean that the coaches would rather have him leave the program entirely than change positions now?
(3) Given that Richt’s stated position has been “… we just want to get him in the best position to help Georgia”, how does letting him transfer from the program do that?
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UPDATE: Here’s the first report that I’ve seen that Gray has requested his release. (h/t EDSBS)
Get The Picture 
I’m not crazy about the backup QB playing receiver but it’s better than not having a backup QB.
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We will miss his fair catching ability.
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nail>head on #1. It’s as if we (and I mean we, collectively) want him to LIKE being a back up his entire career. How dare he want to get on the football field!!
I think Gray is better than most people give him credit for. We’ve only had a very small sample to judge him by.
I’m unclear on why playing receiver is “not much of an option right now”. I thought we had depth issues?
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I’m not. They need Gray at quarterback a lot more than they do at receiver.
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But wouldn’t keeping him as a receiver & emergency qb option be better than him transferring?
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I agree with you.
But it doesn’t sound like the coaches do.
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My thoughts exactly. If QB is no longer an option and it’s either Logan as a WR or Logan leaving the program…isn’t it pretty obvious which is the better option? Is simple economic theory really that difficult? Surely our coaches are intelligent enough to do the math here.
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I agree, but will the coaches let him get enough snaps at WR to contribute with only 2 scholarship QB’s? Does Hines Ward have any eligibility left?
Sending Logan out to WR works out perfectly for us by solving our depth problems at WR, and it makes Logan happy; provided Mett is still on the team…
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I’m sorry for sounding negative, but we have a problem at QB. Maybe some are in denial but nevertheless it is true. Mett is gone. IMO Gray has proven he cannot get the job done. (Can you imagine what would have happened to the Dawgs last year if Cox had gotten injured?) The heir apparent, Murray, is a damn good player but appears to be injury prone. The only other scholarship athlete at QB is Mason, also a damn good player, but a true freshman without a spring practice. Move Gray to WR or let him transfer if he wants. Get the best JC QB you can find to be the backup and pray Murray stays healthy. I have said on this blog previously that long term Mason will be the QB and I feel more strongly that way now than ever before.
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Murray is injury prone? I thought the only issue he had was some tendonitis last year, which is something that doesn’t really discriminate regarding who it affects. I mean, yeah, he broke his leg his senior year, but that’s another one of those things that just kinda happen…it’s not like a guy is more likely to break his leg than anyone else.
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True, but the fact is Murray has missed games he was needed in during both of the last two seasons for one reason or another. Gray has to realize if that happens again, he will get his chance to start and prove himself. This in addition to his opportunity to win the job outright in August if he is really the better option.
I don’t see AM as a slam dunk to shine throughout the season even if he holds onto the starting spot. This is a guy who has never even taken a snap in college. He certainly has the potential to lead us, and I hope he does, but few freshman starters provide all the answers in their first year. Gray seems to be reversing his position from the post-GDay comments where he said it was a long time until the first kickoff.
Richt is honest with players to a fault about no guarantees on how they will be used, and chances for playing time. We have all praised him for not being Meyer-like in telling players/recruits whatever they want to hear. It is hard to expect him to not to level with Gray just to keep him around as much as we may want him to in this situation.
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I am not trying to equate the two situations/quarterbacks, but it’s not like Mark Richt doesn’t have successful experience breaking in a redshirt freshman starter at that position in the SEC.
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It did help knowing he had semi-experienced help in Cory Phillips in case of injury that first year though.
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It didn’t help in the South Carolina game.
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Missing games you’re needed in and being injury prone are two different things. Perhaps it’s splitting hairs, but I don’t see how his past injuries label him injury prone. A broken leg and tendonitis are things that can happen to anyone and generally aren’t recurring issues.
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If I may…
– Mel Kiper has AJ Green as his #4 in the ’11 NFL Draft. McShay has him at #5.
– Georgia has the best returning running game in the conference outside of Alabama.
– Georgia has the deepest, most talented TE corps…anywhere, really.
– Solid OL.
If we were expecting a QB to be bailing this offense out, we were already in trouble. Let me chuck the rock with those skill players and that line.
/Optimism!
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McShay and Keiper are douchebags. Mayock is the real deal and he is high on Green
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How is he injury prone?
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Hate to be a jerk mayor, (actually I don’t mind it that much) but if you think Mason is the guy long-term, than you have about as much football knowledge as Marth Stewart.
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At least I know how to spell Martha.
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P.S. Mason completely rewrote the Georgia HS record book in every category in 2009. He’s the best QB to come out of the state of Georgia since Eric Zeier.
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No one had more impressive high school stats than Joe Cox.
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Yeah, and if UGA had a defense and a running game in the first half of the year last year we might have won the SEC, too.
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You better kiss me, cause you gonna miss me when I’m gone
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I don’t get Logan’s thinking here. It seems he would get a lot of snaps at QB even without starting; UGA’s schedule is leagues easier than in the last few years, making blowouts more likely. He’s not out of the running for starter either; we’ve got fall camp coming and who knows what can happen. Why would he go?
My, this gun barrel is surprisingly tasty.
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I’ll just go ahead and say it since no one else wants to: You know who else is injury prone? AJ Green. As it is, we don’t have much depth at WR. But if Green has another goin pull, shoulder issue or whatever, both Georgia and Gray are going to feel stupid if Logan is spending the year riding pine for the mandatory year at a major program or toiling in obscurity at a lower level. How is Logan at WR not a no-brainer?
Other thoughts:
Bobo was around when we did the WR/QB thing with Hines Ward.
Maybe it’s beyond our capacities to have a special Grayhound package, like a wishbone, for Logan, but I feel certain that Urban Meyer wouldn’t find this situation nearly so challenging.
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That’s only because Urban knows how to think outside the tackle box.
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That “we will miss his fair catching ability” line was funny the first 1000 times…
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After the clearing out of the d staff last year, I thought the bunker mentality was gone. This, though, boggles the mind. Someone needs to show these coaches film from 1996 (right? 96?) when we had another versatile athlete line up wherever he was needed. I’m not saying Gray is that caliber of athlete, but it’s not unprecedented.
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“I’m not saying Gray is that caliber of athlete”
Well, then what are you saying?
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What I’m saying is I don’t think Gray will go on to be a Super Bowl MVP with a long, productive NFL career, saying that there aren’t many guys as talented and versatile as Hines Ward, who played just about everywhere on the field when he was wearing the red and black, and if memory serves he was our only backup QB.
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Here’s the thing, though:
“Someone needs to show these coaches film from 1996 (right? 96?) when we had another versatile athlete line up wherever he was needed.”
Who’s to say Logan himself was up to the task?
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I understand your point. Maybe he’s not up to the task, and maybe he’s a bigger liability at the WR position. I don’t know.
It seems, though, that the coaches would have preferred him to stay in a 3-way battle for QB instead of playing him at WR in the spring to see how things would play out there. I don’t know their thinking, but it sucks to know that now we’re looking at two very young QBs going into fall camp and another year of potential uncertainty.
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Actually it was ’95. How many games did UGA win in ’95? The answer is “6.” And the coach got fired.
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I don’t see Gray getting on the field very much whether he plays WR or QB, unless the starters are injured at one position or the other. With Mett gone, you’d think LG would understand he’s just one broken pinky away from starting. I guess if he drops down to division 3 he’d be guranteed playing time. I don’t see why he’d want to leave after investing 3 years with the Dawgs, unless he feels the coaches implied he’d be given a real shot, and then pulled back on that promise.
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We s/b be able to move the ball on the ground & use play action passes to be successful against any D we face. We can run the ball.
I still believe that we have enough depth on Offense that Logan could come in with a unit that has a different set of run/pass options & move the Offense.He has a better chance of getting on the field at QB than at WR.
Is Murray the answer at QB for the next 4 years? I expect him to have a David Greene like 4 year run.
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What happened to doing what’s best for the team? If there’s an issue with QB depth, then he needs to stay at QB. He needs to be practicing and watching film with the QB’s, not the WR’s. It’s what’s best for the team. C’mon, be a team player, Logan.
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Logan Gray was touted as the next great hope. I think the coaches have screwed up another player by 1. not letting the guy play hardly any 2. when he played he gets thrown to the wolves at Jax. Our coaches have played guys at the wrong position a lot, granted it has been mostly on D. The miracle of CMR is his ability to keep two good QB’s in the program at the same time his weakness is that the backup’s except for DJ have not been given enough game experience. If Gray leaves, we are one slight injury away from a real bad season. We will see 8-9 in the box on every play as it is so I wouldn’t hold my breath on that 3 yards and a cloud of dust game.
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“I’m unclear on why playing receiver is ‘not much of an option right now’. I thought we had depth issues?”
I am sure the coaches have seen Gray play WR and we have not. They probably know that given his size and athletic ability it will take several years to make him a viable gameday WR. What is the point of putting him on the scout team as a WR when we need him as the #2 QB for the next 2 yr. He will start at QB if Murray, a small mobile QB gets hurt (i.e. J Terishinski for DJ Shock). Moving to WR at this point just seems like a bad idea for the team and for the player. He just wants to play, and I am guessing that he has a better chance to see the field before he graduatesas a QB than he does as a WR.
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I mean M. Brown is a blue chip 6’5″ athlete that played WR through highschool and how much did he see the field last year.
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I know Mayor of Dtown mentioned it obliquely, but has anyone looked at the JUCO ranks to bring aboard an “adequate” backup…he comes aboard knowing he’s there for emergency services but also has the benefit of having carried a team for two years????!!!
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We could lure Cam Newton away from Auburn with a trail of laptops.
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He would have to sit out a season or until his jail time is up, whichever is sooner.
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Hearing people rip him is disgusting and shows what trash we have as a fan base
I understand some want him to stay b/c Murray COULD get hurt. Understandable.
I laugh at those who fake this compassion and say that he should stay “for UGA”….when all they want is for themselves to feel better about the backup spot. Nothing to actually do with Logan. Logan should do what is best for HIMSELF, not UGA.
Everyone with a child that is behind someone younger would contemplate transferring to start….so stop being so damn fake and understand what he is going through
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First I can’t blame Logan for wanting a chance to play. Plus he has only talked to Richt about the possibility of transferring. No decision has been made as far as I know. I do agree that if the only way to keep him around is to offer him the chance to play WR then I say there is nothing to lose by letting him move to that position then you have him at least dressed out should something happen to Murray. Hopefully with what should be a very good running game, a solid (chance of being great) OL, and lots of talent around him Murray won’t take too many hits and can stay healthy throughout the season.
I also agree with the poster who commented about everyone bashing Gray and how he would never be an SEC qb a week ago and now bash him for not being a team guy. Sad.
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If he stays as the back-up there is a 50-50 chance he will play a lot and maybe be the starter by the end of the year. Injuries to QBs in the SEC are frequent and (I don’t care if people are in denial about this) Murray is injury prone.
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