There’s no question that, as of today, Cam Newton is the SEC player of the year. But John Pennington makes a good case that no player in the conference is more valuable to his team than is Aaron Murray.
… Georgia’s redshirt freshman quarterback Murray might be the breakout player of the year in the SEC. Yes, Carolina’s Lattimore has looked tremendous, but Murray has flashed potential greatness, too. And the quarterback position is tougher to play than the running back position. Murray’s passer rating is good, he’s proven to be very mobile, and he ranks high in 4th quarter passing, too (a stat we showed you yesterday). If he continues to progress, Murray looks to be a future All-SEC quarterback, if not better.
We’ve noticed.
Get The Picture 
As valuable as they both are, it is very, very difficult to make it through the entire SEC season as a running QB.
With Newton’s size, one wonders if he could even get hurt, but the coaches have got to tell Murray to get down, because he is not going to finish the season if he continues playing like he has.
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Glad to see concern building for this, I am pretty sure the coaches are telling Murray to get down, but the kid obviously thinks he and Newton are the same size sometimes.
It is a little known fact that Dawgs don’t recognize size, hopefully Murray will begin to understand the physics.
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“It not the size of the Dawg in the fight it’s the size of the fight in the Dawg.” Bear Bryant.
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I’m not a huge recruiting follower, but I suppose Christian LeMay has noticed, too.
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I’m sure he has, but I don’t think we have to worry about that. As far as I understand, one of the reasons he sat out this season and transferred schools (other than the obvious reason) was to be able to get enough credit to graduate in December and enroll at UGA in January. Additionally, he has to also know the issue at QB regarding depth and know that he could be only one play away from starting. I would assume he’ll redshirt due to the extended amount of time away from live games, but since he’s enrolling early, perhaps not.
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I like what little I’ve seen of Hutson Mason. He looks composed in the pocket, has a pretty good arm and a quick release.
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+1
I’m glad we’ve gotten him a little playing time. He’s looked remarkably polished for such little playing time. Anytime you can start your career with a 30 yd TD pass, that’s a good thing.
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And Nick Marshall is coming as a DB, but if you have an opportunity to see him play quarterback this season he’s pretty damn special.
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I am not a recruitnik either, NCT, but I also doubt LeMay comes to UGA now. Murray is an unlikely early NFL departure and their eligibility years overlap too much. I certainly want top talent at UGA but I cannot blame him if he finds a place where he can play earlier. Even if LeMay is a little better, the experience gap would be too much to overcome at this point, imo.
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I’m not saying it’s impossible that LeMay changes his mind, but I don’t think it’s very likely at all. Here’s the statement from him and his family:
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I really hope LeMay stays a Georgia commit. However, if he does change his mind, I’d almost like to see him go to FSU just to see how much crow they’d have to eat after they were all discounting him when he chose Georgia.
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When are we going to put Mettenberger in?
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He was 100x better in the spring game…That means he has to start. Cause the spring game means everything.
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FWIW, Mettenberger is 109-190(57%), 1718 yards, 23 TD’s and 3 INT’s at Butler CC. He will likely be back in the SEC next year.
Not saying he would have been better, just saying that we will never know. He obviously had some maturity issues that we don’t need in the program any more than we already have.
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Hopefully at Awbern.
The last time they took a Georgia cast off…well Pulpwood said it best: “Cobb is a bitch”.
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The offensive scheme differences aside, Murray really reminds me a lot of Colt McCoy in his first year starting at Texas. I haven’t looked up the stats to see how comparable they are, but just from the fan’s perspective, they seem to be similar…both pretty accurate, good enough wheels to make big plays on the ground and make defenses think twice, similar in size/stature…I would certainly take similar careers.
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McCoy is the guy he most reminds me of, too. Murray projects to outrush him by over 100 yards, and throw for about 300 more yards, with fewer TD passes, more TD rushes, a lower completion percentage and a better yards per attempt average.
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Yeah, I just checked out the stats…pretty comparable.
Murray projected: Passing – 192-310 (61.9%), 2834 yds, 9.13 YPA, 21 TD, 5 INT, 24 sacks, 157.1 rating. Rushing – 87 attempts, 271 yds, 3.1 YPC, 7 TD
McCoy as a redshirt freshman: Passing – 217-318 (68.2%), 2570 yds, 8.08 YPA, 29 TD, 7 INT, 14 sacks, 161.8 rating. Rushing – 68 attempts, 170 yds, 2.5 YPC, 2 TD
The differences in sack numbers I would chalk up to a combination of our poor line play to start the year and the differences in system. In a one-read system that Texas runs, the quarterback makes his read quickly, if the top receiver isn’t there, he dumps it off…prevents a lot of sacks because he rarely turns his back to the defense and mostly runs out of shotgun.
As for the completion percentage, that’s another thing I would chalk up to the system. Much much easier to have a high completion percentage in a one-read system like Texas or Texas Tech.
All in all, pretty impressive numbers from Murray to be able to compare so favorably to a guy who is the winningest NCAA QB of all time as well as a perennial Heisman contender.
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I’m glad we’ve got Murray. He’s been a great surprise to me given how well he’s played.
However, I just can’t see how he’s more valuable than Newton. That guy is a monster, and there’s no way Auburn is sniffing the SECCG without him.
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I totally agree. Auburn is basically Cam and 52 mediocre players (as seen in the defense rankings and Cam’s total offense) where as we have some pretty good play makers on both sides of the ball. No doubt Murray is 2nd though.
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I’d disagree with that. Their O-line is outstanding and the D-line ain’t too shabby.
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This is a little bit of a misleading argument. I’d rather have a guy that accounts for more yards but less percentage of total offense than the other way around.
Murray’s % of total offense is a reflection of how poor our running game has been. Not that Murray isn’t a stud…
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How is the argument misleading? It’s not based on what you’d rather have, it’s based on who is more valuable. By definition, the player with the higher percentage of the team’s total offense is the more valuable player, is it not?
The fact that Murray’s high percentage of total offense may be influenced by our lack of a run game, but that doesn’t change how important he is to our offense. When things aren’t going well, you have to have players step up and carry the team, and Murray has done just that. Even when the running game has performed well, Murray has still been an outstanding playmaker.
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Hate to think where Dawgs would be right now if Murray hadn’t been this good. Corch just called to ask how much $$ do you think his jersey would cost.
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This all seems to show how good Mike Bobo is as a QB coach. The Mettenberger stats at Juco, Aaron’s ablity and the fact that Hudson Mason is not as nearly scary at this point of the year. Love him or hate him as OC the man can coach some QB.
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“Then why has Georgia been stuck without a QB two out of the last five years?” — Random Bobo Hater
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Answer: ‘Cause the 2009 senior Heisman Trophy candidate QB left school early to be the #1 pick in the NFL draft and the projected 2010 starter had arm trouble in ’09 and couldn’t get any work in games in a mop-up role so they red-shirted him. Any more questions?
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I wasn’t really expecting an answer for my tongue-in-cheek quote, but…thanks?
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I knew the question was tongue-in-cheek. I just couldn’t resist as I have heard things like that said so many times by haters that it nearly makes me throw up.
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Understandable. The tailgate before the Arkansas game drove me nuts, and the bitching after the game was worse.
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Let’s not go crazy 69D. I’m not going to annoint Bobo as the second coming if he can’t out-score Colorado. For every good play he calls, he has an equal number of head-scratchers. It just may be Murray is doing well despite Bobo’s coaching a la Curran and Jancek.
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Just like Greene, Shockley, and stafford did well despite his coaching?
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Hard to believe this rotten coaching staff could see how good Murray could be, since they can’t recruit, and surprisingly considering how bad the coaching is, his high school coach says he did not expect Murray to progress this fast.
Golly gosh, just think what Murray would be like with a better play caller and QB coach.
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Let’s not go overboard in the sarcasm. He was kind of a no-brainer, an Elite 11 QB who Rivals ranked as something like the third best QB prospect that year. Mettenberger was actually the raw talent coming out. That he was ready to potentially start over Murray this year is a tribute to Bobo’s ability.
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At what point was he ready to potentially start over Murray? The only thing that ever gave rise to any sort of message board fodder saying that was that he had a better performance in G-Day. Murray had better overall numbers for the spring and was at the top of the depth chart before Mettenberger left. Based on comments from the coaches, Mett was still third on the depth chart at that point. Crazy what one glorified scrimmage does for a guy’s reputation.
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Fair enough. I think it was way too early to view anything as even remotely determined when he was booted, but he was technically third.
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Sorry Biggus….I just get soooo sick of the Bobo bashers
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I bet $5 that Mettenberger is the starting QB at LSU next year. Have you seen his JUCO stats? He is ridiculously good, wish we had him in the wings.
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More like ONE of the starting qb’s at LSU….Les Miles, ya know?
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I think if Lemay still comes. His missing his senior year and Richt sticking by him probably reinforced his commitment to UGA. He also probably realizes that with Murray liking to run that he is only one play away from getting in the game. Since Murray is not likely to be a guy (size) to leave early for the NFL he will be here for his senior year. That means Richt probably redshirts Lemay so that that he can start for 2 years.
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