Stewart Mandel’s “wow” factor

Do they not have the Internet in Montana?  Because otherwise, I’m at a loss to understand this Stewart Mandel status report:

… What began as a quarterback derby in Athens has devolved into a quarterback panic. Redshirt freshman Murray, ranked only behind USC’s Barkley and Texas’ Garrett Gilbert in Rivals.com’s 2009 quarterback rankings, will take over the reins this fall just as Georgia fans always imagined. But the Tampa native didn’t exactly wow observers this spring. In fact, classmate Zach Mettenberger finished spring on even footing, if not slightly ahead of Murray.

Contrast Mandel’s “even footing, if not slightly ahead” with Mark Richt’s recent announcement of the post-spring depth chart.

“We see Murray ahead of Logan right now,” Richt said. “It’s just a matter of, on a consistent basis, [Murray] performed better than Logan at this point. That’s really all there is to it. It’s the usual things -– accuracy, decision-making, those types of things.”

After briefly hesitating, Richt answered the inevitable question of whether Murray would have been No. 1  even if a third quarterback, Zach Mettenberger, had not been kicked off the team on Sunday. The answer, Richt said, is yes.

“I’m not out to hurt anybody worse than they may have been hurt to this point,” Richt said, “but Aaron would have been the No. 1 quarterback.”

Those aren’t even close.

But what does Richt know?  He’s only a coach, not an observer.