I’m reading this piece on the young quarterbacks facing off in the Liberty Bowl when out jumps this admission:
… Georgia coach Mark Richt said he would have played quarterback Aaron Murray during his first year in college as well, but Murray was sidelined with tendonitis.
First time I’ve heard him put that so baldly. I wonder when Richt would have played him. Hopefully not in the fourth quarter of the Florida game, although Murray couldn’t have made matters any worse.
Seriously, had that happened, I wonder how far the coaches would have gone with it (start against Tech after Cox’ meltdown in the second half against Kentucky?), and what kind of message it would have sent to the other QBs. We’ll never know, but that goes to show how little the G-Day performances meant to Richt and Bobo.
Get The Picture 
Scuse me for thinking gloomy, but doesn’t tendinitis have a tendency to recur?
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Yes.
Didn’t this year, though.
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Not necessarily I had it 10 years ago got a shot for it and have never had it again. Plus Arron has adopted a shoulder workout routine that they use to rehab Tommy Johns patients and that has been working well.
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Me too, in 1993. Couldn’t button a shirt, or close a car door, but had to get better for a scheduled golf trip to Ireland. Doc gave me the good stuff and I haven’t had a flare up since.
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I thought the redshirt was definitely coming off after the UF game. He would have had 5 games left to play in and his first game would have been against Tenn Tech. I was more than a little shocked/scared to see Grey was our only other option last year.
In the “what if” world, I can only imagine we would have put more points on the board the first three games of this season, if only Murray had half a season’s worth of experience and the full playbook open to him. Guess the bright side of not playing him last year is we get him back in 2013 (hopefully!).
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Murray doesn’t strike me (with my far from expert eyes) as NFL material. I think keeping the shirt on him in ’09 so we had him for four full seasons was the way to go. We’ve got stability at quarterback for the next three years which is an important piece of the puzzle.
Now, we just need the gamebreaker RB. Let’s hope Kirby’s flirtation with Will f’s that up for Saban.
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What does this tell us about LSU’s JUCO transfer?
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We know that LSU can’t schedule a home and home with Valdosta State.
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HEY-OOOOO!!!!
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Brilliant!
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I remember this – it was in his shoulder. I remember reading (and posting) about it on Hale’s blog. I was dealing with rehab from a rotator cuff surgery at the time.
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Did this line change after my comment?
“First time I’ve heard him put that so baldly. “
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That Redshirt wasn’t cmoing off!! Remember this is the same Richt who redshired Moreno. Quick WHAT IF: If Richt had been at FL Tebows 1st year would he have redshirted him to build for the future, since he had an established starter? Or who he have found a way to get a playmaker on the field to help him win games?
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You’ve got to remember that when Richt redshirted Moreno we had Danny Ware, Kregg Lumpkin, and Thomas Brown in the backfield. In hindsight, maybe it’s a bad decision, and the RS could have come off when Brown hurt his knee on a kickoff return (TN game or Vandy game?).
You’ve also got to remember he did NOT redshirt Stafford that year, who was the other stud in the class, and that decision was a good one.
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Thank you. People forget what the ’06 team was composed of. All 3 of those guys got some kinda paycheck outa the league. If Bobo had been calling plays the entire season (he made a gameplan for Auburn and took over at Tech), we would’ve likely eked out another win or two.
What’s more, after the KM mistake, CMR gave us the comeback call of playing Samuel as a 17 yr old frosh. Now THAT’s the time to sit a guy. I find it fascinating that the average Venter screams at CMR for not playing KM while simultaneously screaming at him for playing RS as a frosh.
If I can play armchair QB, I would suggest that CMR use amazing talents like KM in kick or punt returns early and wait on putting them in regular offense until they can pass block, etc. This seemed to be the thought with Branden Smith, though he has failed to develop as a DB so not sure what use he’ll be.
What’s more, just b/c a player is in the offense for an extra yr does not guarantee he will “learn” the offense (see Ealey, Washaun), be it pass blocking (ARK ’10) or rushing (UK ’09)
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I think it is a bit early to claim Branden Smith hasn’t worked out. He’s only a sophomore.
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Thus far. I hope he turns it around, but he doesn’t look like the “lock down” corner we were hopin fer.
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I think we might see some improvement under year 2 of Coach Lakatos.
At least that’s what I’m hoping for…
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I thought the technique was better, but we got burned way too often. I hope year 2 sees improvement in that area.
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It wasn’t gross negligence by the coaching staff that kept Murray off of the field last year? The internet has failed me.
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Yeah, I’m not sure why this is news. There were a few of us on Hale’s blog last year noting that Murray was probably being held out for injury. Didn’t stop the hyena chorus from flipping out over Richt’s criminal non-redshirt-burning activities, however.
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“I find it fascinating that the average Venter screams at CMR for not playing KM while simultaneously screaming at him for playing RS as a frosh.:”
It’s his fault for not having 20/20 hindsight, and he should be sacked immediately.
This crap is not an exact science. Coaches can’t always tell who is going to be ready to play and who isn’t. It’s like drafting quarterbacks in the NFL; some choices work out great (Matt Ryan, Sam Bradford), some not so much (Jamarcus Russell, Alex Smith).
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So, had Murray not been injured CMR would have re- created the same situation as the Tereshinski-Stafford-Cox fiasco of 2006. Only this time it would have been Cox-Murray-Gray/Mettenberger. CMR needs to stop speculating about ‘what coulda been’. He already made an ass of himself when recounting the story of how he recruited Cam Newton as a TE. For a guy who still should be in his prime, sometimes CMR talks like an old man about woulda, coulda, shoulda.
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Just so we’re clear:
– Richt is an idiot for not burning redshirts.
– Richt is an idiot for burning redshirts.
Got it.
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Yeah, what a jerk that Richt guy is.
He met a 6’6″ 250 lb kid (who had an older bro playing O Line at Tennessee State) and said “Tight End”.
And it was his stupid old man “throw it every down” play calling in 2006 that made the season a fiasco. He should’ve been all cutting edge 3 yards and a pile of dust in 2006 but no no, he went “old school” let’s put a pro style offense in the hands of QB’s that weren’t physically able (JT3, JC) or knowledgeable (MS) to run the offense.
The only bigger idiot is 2 time Natty winner Urban Meyer for not sweeping Cam’s indiscretions under the carpet at UF (as he certainly would if he knew he was going to win the Heisman).
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“He already made an ass of himself when recounting the story of how he recruited Cam Newton as a TE”
There we go again with hindsight. How does that make him look like an ass when Cam Newton wasn’t even going to be starting at UF this year? He obviously wasn’t that polished of a passer coming out of high school (and there’s debate on whether he can really handle passing now). Our offense relies on a solid passing quarterback, so he projected not as a quarterback for our system.
And maybe I’m missing something but when does Richt talk about what woulda, coulda, shoulda been other than when he’s asked about it? You can’t really determine the context of why he said that about Murray from the article, and I doubt he just offered it up like he was leaning back in a chair in his office chit chattin’ it up with some reporter.
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“… and there’s debate on whether he can really handle passing now”
No, there isn’t. Anyone who has watched the guy play all season knows he can pass the ball.
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The first time you guys saw Richard Samuel run, you didn’t think that he wasn’t a RB? Even to me, he looked like he ran to straight up. Knowshon looked good from the start. Kiante Tripp, Bean Anderson, and I think we add Branden Smith to the list as well.
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Not that G Day preformances are insignificant since they are “game like”, but only the recliner crowd makes brilliant decisions based on one scrimmage. Richt and Bobo have hundreds of hours, in dozens of situations (both on the field and off), over months upon which to make the decisions they do. And, despite the opinions of many here, they are widely regarded as more qualified to make them than fans are. I am sure ZM took a leap forward in their thinking after seeing the way he handled himself in April, on Masters Saturday, but the decision for who would start at QB had already been made, imo. The reports from practice last fall were pretty encouraging. None of this means squat about who will have the better NFL stats, but Murray wasn’t going to lose the starting job in a single scrimmage, regardless of how many fans were approaching the ledge due to an ill-advised Murray pass.
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