Richt faces decision on Hutson Mason: Play him or redshirt him?
Mark Richt must decide whether to play true freshman Hutson Mason early in the season. (Curtis Compton / AJC)
There’s been considerable debate here in the past over the way Mark Richt and Mike Bobo have handled Georgia’s No. 2 quarterbacks, with a vocal contingent arguing that the Dogs should always have a backup who has real-game experience.
This year, of course, that’s complicated by the fact that Georgia’s starter doesn’t even have any real-game experience.
Plus, no one’s entirely sure who the backup quarterback is. Nominally, it’s still Logan Gray, who has appeared in preseason camp to be on his way to establishing himself as a viable receiving threat, though he’s currently hobbled by an ankle injury. In practice, the backup has been true freshman Hutson Mason, who ideally would get a redshirt year to master the Richt/Bobo offense before having to take a snap when it counts.
Richt has described the lack of experience and depth at QB this year as “scary,” and the decision facing him and Bobo isn’t an easy one. Should redshirt freshman starter Aaron Murray play the whole game against opening opponent Louisiana-Lafayette to get as much experience as possible before facing South Carolina in Columbia the next week — even staying in the game after the third-string backs and linemen have rotated onto the field against the outmanned Ragin’ Cajuns?
If not, who gets the call for mop-up duty? Gray, who’d probably rather be catching as many balls as he could rather than acting as a human place marker? Or will Richt and Bobo give up any idea of redshirting Mason?
The young man in question told The Athens Banner-Herald he has no idea which way they’ll go. “I don’t know, we all don’t know, no one really knows right now,” Mason said. “It’s just a big question mark. All I can do is go out and perform every day in practice and try to prove myself.”
Said Richt, “I guess we really haven’t thought much about it. … We haven’t really got close enough to where we say, ‘What are we going to do?’ it’s coming up, we’re going to have to talk about it pretty quick. We just haven’t had that discussion yet.”
Frankly, it’s hard to believe they really haven’t had that discussion yet, but maybe they’re waiting to see how things go in today’s scrimmage. As Mason told the ABH, “I think it all depends on how I finish camp and how I finish these last couple of practices.”
Earlier in camp Bobo praised Mason’s “command in the huddle” and said he “liked a lot” what he saw in the young quarterback, who set Georgia state single-season high-school records for passing yards (4,560) and touchdowns (54) and a state single-game record for passing yards (552) last season.
So what do you think, should Richt and Bobo get Mason some early playing time? Or do you believe they should hold on to that redshirt unless it absolutely has to be burned?
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228 comments Add your comment
RxDawg
August 25th, 2010
12:30 pm
I don’t think this is a hard decision at all. Mason is going to be our #2 QB, you don’t redshirt him.
With Lemay (hopefully) coming next year, not to mention any other QB recruits in the future, trying to delay Mason’s playing years isn’t really going to make or break us.
dawgfan13
August 25th, 2010
12:32 pm
Georgia will never be able to compete for anything if they keep having qb who have never taken a college game snap. Play the guy!!!! It makes no sense to red shirt him when Lemay is goiing to be your guy in the future.
Just a fan
August 25th, 2010
12:34 pm
I don’t even think this should be a question you ply Hutson Mason because if you red shirt him and next season you have an injury at QB you are in same position get the kid some experience, if he is as impressive as Bobo has been saying all preseason then play him.
DawginLex
August 25th, 2010
12:36 pm
Bobo can only do so much in preparing these kids. They have to play the games on their own.
Cox threw 25 TD’s so it is obvious he had some ability.
His downfall was the 17 interceptions.
If Murray can do 20 TD’s and less than 10 int’s we are in business with the running game we have.
Can You Dig It
August 25th, 2010
12:41 pm
I say Georgia will be “Livin La Vida Loca” after their win in the SEC Championship game this year…..Can You Dig It!
Circus Act
August 25th, 2010
12:41 pm
Richt is paid millions and doesnt know what he is gonna do about the QB situation. I guess this is why he “Hopes” UGA will play better and move up in the polls too. I think the new AD will not put up with this crap much longer. Its time for CMR to grow a pair and produce. If not, its time for some real hard line decisions in the footballl program.
Sweat Socks
August 25th, 2010
12:44 pm
Don’t redshirt him. We need a backup with real game experience.
I will not be the next head coach at Alabama. I am the head coach of the Miami Dolphins
August 25th, 2010
12:46 pm
That’s a toughie. Play Mason some in mop up roles, so he’ll have some experience in 2011, but burn a year of eligibility.
Here’s another option. Play Aaron until the game (wk 1) is well under control. Put in one of the walk-ons and get Aaron out of the game to avoid freak injury. Keep Mason redshirted. Should Murray get hurt later, then decide taking redshirt off of Mason or using the walk-on with a few snaps of experience.
Sweat Socks
August 25th, 2010
12:46 pm
I agree Circus Act.
If he can’t hit 10 wins with this schedule, then McGarity needs to start looking around for a new coach.
That is all.
?????????
August 25th, 2010
12:51 pm
What are these over paid clowns doing in Athens? Mark Richt has allowed this garbage to happen because of him and BOZO didnt give Murray any P T last year. This program is a joke now and everyone know this in the college football world except the blind homers.
Delbert D.
August 25th, 2010
12:59 pm
Let’s be realistic. In a Marietta Daily Journal article over the weekend, Mason said that he was down to 1 offer, Virginia, when Georgia offered. He was intending to enroll at Georgia and walk on. Then came the lights-out play in the 2 playoff games, and he became a Parade All-America. He is fully committed to a career at Georgia.
Mason played for Chip Lindsey (now at Troy) in the Hoover HS spread offense, a strictly shotgun offense, all QB reads, over 90% passing. Now he’s had to try to absorb the Georgia playbook over the summer. It is ludicrous to project at this time that Mason is going to be a 3-year-and-NFL guy. When Lassiter faced Propst, Lindsey’s mentor from Hoover in the playoffs, Lassiter was clobbered and Mason had 5 interceptions. Give the guy a break on expectations. CMR needs to get him reps in the season to preclude a complete disaster if Murray gets injured. Forget all the “will he be a threat to signing Lemay” stuff.
SOUTH GA DAWG
August 25th, 2010
1:01 pm
GIVE HIM EARYLY PLAYING TIME. OUR BACKS ARE AGAINST THE WALL IF MURRAY GOES DOWN. WHY NOT GIVE HIM A QUARTER IN THE HOME OPENER?????
McGarrity
August 25th, 2010
1:03 pm
If Jeremy Foley taught me one thing it is not to accept less than winning championships. Foley fired a womens Basketball coach who had one a NC previously at Purdue, 2 Baseball Coaches and Ronnie the Zooker and even the zooker beat on CMR. CMR is already hearing footsteps!
SickandTired
August 25th, 2010
1:07 pm
McGarity must be looking at this situation after coming from Florida and saying my God what is this guy thinking. Mark Richt acts like he’s coaching a high school team or something. Let’s review his handling of Qb’s. He had in David Greene the winningest QB in NCAA history until Colt McCoy broke the record last year. Yet, he seemed driven to force DJ Shockley into the game every week in the first half. All that did was cost him a Natioanl Championship in 2002 in the Florida game. Shock comes in his senior year after having gotten all this playing time and leads the team to an SEC Championship that they got into because Spurrier beat Florida as Georgia was losing in Sanford Stadium to Auburn. Bullett dodged. Then we have the great wisdom of starting Joe T.III in 2006 before coming to his senses and putting Stafford in the starting role a week after Joe Cox comes in to bail Stafford out against Colorado. One would think that even after starting Stafford that Joe Cox would have gotten to meaningful playing time somewhere along the way after that. But in essence he never saw the field again until Stafford left early and last season was the result of starting a 5th year senior who’d seen virtually no playing time whatsoever unlike Shockley. So which way was he gonna do it? The DJ way or the Cox way? Indecision, not the mark of a great leader. Now it brings us to Murray who was redshirted last year never seeing any playing time and any coach with a brain looking down the road could have seen this September coming but yet he faces starting a guy who’s never taken a snap in the SEC and having a guy who’s a true freshman backing him up or maybe he’ll reach for the guy that used to be a QB but isn’t practicing at the position anymore because he’s catching passes. And Georgia pays him how much to run this football program. Hot Seat? Did you say hot seat? Let Murray strike out as a SEC Qb like Brock Berlin did at Florida or worse get hurt and throw Mason in the fire and the seat will not be hot it’s going to be it’s gonna be the temperature of the surface of the sun. But, Mr. Cool, calm and collected will stand over there on the sidelines like he’s coach Prince Avenue. For crying out loud, this guy have the vision of Stevie Wonder. Get your pop corn ready, the show’s about to start.
TJ
August 25th, 2010
1:09 pm
Did anyone other than me think its funny that it takes a year to Master the Richt/Bobo offense.
McGarrity
August 25th, 2010
1:17 pm
No TJ, as old as I am; I can predict 90% of where the play is headed by the way the players line up. Don’t think for a moment that Linebackers who study film get it right 99% of the time. I got sick to my stomach last year in Jax when Spikes easily stepped up and picked off Logan. Logan got the blame but it was these idiot coaches who designed the offense.
1eyedJack
August 25th, 2010
1:21 pm
Play him. We don’t want to wind up with an inexperienced QB against UF like we did with JoeT.
bigfan
August 25th, 2010
1:25 pm
If Mason looks good in practice play him. Dogs need experience ay QB! Many think that Lemay is the man next year, but it is my understanding that Lemay is not even playing his senior year in high school. In my opinion they should play Mason and redshirt Lemay next season since LeMay will have no game experience at all this fall. However I believe that for recruiting purposes that Richt has probably assured Lemay that he will not redshirt him. It is going to be interesting!
Many question marks in the SEC this year. Nothing in the world compares to SEC FOOTBALL!
JaxDawg
August 25th, 2010
1:26 pm
Absolutely play him. We don’t need to get into the scenario where Murray goes down and we either take the redshirt off Mason or put in Gray who’s been playing reciever the whole season. This decision is an absolute no brainer.
Will
August 25th, 2010
1:26 pm
He must play. I see no other way around it. I just wish we still had Mettingberger.
SSIgator
August 25th, 2010
1:27 pm
“Said Richt, “I guess we really haven’t thought much about it.”
Boy, does that first part of the quote sum up the sad state of affairs in Athens. This is a guy you are paying a ton of money to be the football coach and that is the best he can say? I say keep Richt as your coach forever. With that kind of leadership in place the rest of the SEC does not have to worry about any serious challenge from UGA. What a joke. 1980 – so long ago.
I like Judge Judy
August 25th, 2010
1:28 pm
Richt needs to play Mason next week. Let Murray play midway of the 3 rd qtr. then put in Mason the rest of the way.
McGarrity
August 25th, 2010
1:28 pm
Sadly if Mettenberger had of been the Christian that Murray is, he would of had a fair shot at starting, but Richt clearly had already made up his mind before Mett outplayed Murray at Gday.
here we go again....
August 25th, 2010
1:33 pm
offensive line is dropping like flies, we have no depth at quarterback, we have an untested defense.
hmm…..does this sound like deja vu all over again?
and TJ, you are wrong….it does takes a year to learn to run the bobo offense (run ball once, throw two bombs and punt,) b/c they have to rid the kid of all his common sense.
76-DAWG
August 25th, 2010
1:38 pm
If Cox had played more before last year maybe he would have been ready to be a leader and wouldn’t have nearly set a record for interceptions. One thing that Richt needs to develop is Grandham’s philosophy. ALWAYS PLAY YOUR BEST PEOPLE, EVEN FRESHMEN . These freshmen have been playing football since they were 7 years old. If they are really good , they will leave for pro ball early anyway. Play all freshman that are good as much as possible. A lot of people learn faster by playing or practical experience and not through reading a play book. Practice is not the same as the real game. Mason need to play as much as possible .
hatfieldgeoff
August 25th, 2010
1:39 pm
Richt does not have a choice. He can’t afford to red shirt Mason. In the first game Mason should get about 3 series in the second half. Murray will have a good three plus quarters to get experience, but Mason needs to take a few snaps in front of a big crowd. We can’t afford to go to Columbia and have Murray go down in the first series and then put the kid in. Logan Grey shouldn’t be considered unless Mason fall completely apart on the field. Grey isn’t a game-changer at QB that has been proven, and even if I was going to lose I rather lose with a QB who will get better and benefit from the experience down the line.
McGarrity
August 25th, 2010
1:46 pm
hatfieldgeoff Murray isn’t a game changer yet either. Gray was as highly rated out of high school as Murray and outplayed him at Gday. I don’t get it with Murray.
DawginLex
August 25th, 2010
1:48 pm
For those of you fortunate enough to be married and have children and the children are daughters;
How would you like it if Mettenberger did to YOUR DAUGHTER WHAT HE DID TO THAT GIRL DOWN IN VALDOSTA?
Still be clamoring for him to play QB this year?
all of you idiots who are spouting off about “i can understand the playbook”. i guarantee you would be crapping all over yourself if you had to get under center, call an audible, read a defense, adjust to a blitz etc.
Ya’ll are a bunch of jokes.
DawginLex
August 25th, 2010
1:54 pm
SSIgator,
I understand you won’t be attending any UGA games this year since you were quoted on another blog as saying there would be 600 pounds less garbage this year.
We appreciate it.
Delbert D.
August 25th, 2010
1:56 pm
McGarrity – 2007 Rivals Dual-Threat QB rankings:
#9 Josh Nesbitt 4 – stars
#10 Logan Gray 4 – stars
Is that good enough for you?
Lindsey
August 25th, 2010
1:58 pm
Play him!! GO DAWGS!!
Decatur Dawg
August 25th, 2010
2:04 pm
Forget the redshirt. Get Mason in the game for sure. You don’t want him talking his first snap in Columbia if Murray gets knocked out.
Delbert D.
August 25th, 2010
2:04 pm
Murray was #4 QB in the country, I think. Somebody confirm that.
Systemic
August 25th, 2010
2:06 pm
Indecision really seems to be Richt’s milieu.
As SickandTired points out, first there was the QB flavor of the week in 2006, the waffling over which tailback to play last season, and now Coach Richt admits ““I guess we really haven’t thought much about [whether to redshirt the backup]… We haven’t really got close enough to where we say, ‘What are we going to do?’ it’s coming up, we’re going to have to talk about it pretty quick. We just haven’t had that discussion yet.”
Not the kind of signals I would want from leadership if I were a Georgia fan. This year could get interesting…
Delbert D.
August 25th, 2010
2:08 pm
Enter your comments here
DawginLex
August 25th, 2010
2:13 pm
systemic,
Ever thought he wants to be able to see the kid play as much as possible before deciding to redshirt him?
Which would you rather him do? Immediately say he is going to redshirt him after a couple of scrimmages or wait until he has seen him play more?
folks on these blogs amaze me at the level of stupidity.
Holy Cow
August 25th, 2010
2:18 pm
why not play him – ya never know he could step up and be better than murray. I’m a Richt supporter but I think some of these guys get too confident with the depth chart. It should always be a compeition for playing time at least until a QB has been a starter for 2 years. Murray should have to prove himself every play of every game. I’m not looking for pressure like Spurrier puts on his QB’s, but a little more than what Richt serves out would do some good IMO.
Systemic
August 25th, 2010
2:19 pm
DawginLex,
The man didn’t say “we want to be able to see the kid play as much as possible before we make our decisions.” No, instead he said: ” ““I guess we really haven’t thought much about it.”
To me, that smacks of either not being fully engaged (which I doubt; I’m sure Coach Richt takes the job seriously), or being a little preoccupied/overwhelmed with other challenges. That’s just my take, but thanks for your rude jab; I’ve come to expect nothing less from the Dog fans.
Just a fan
August 25th, 2010
2:20 pm
DawginLex I understand CMR should want to get as good look at him before deciding to play him but this year I think playing time/experience should trump everything else we have a great 1st opponent to get some real game experience against in ULL why waste that opportunity and then see Murray go down in the 3rd or 4th game of the season. So IMHO we should play him all of the second half or at least 20 minutes of it.
Ol Balls Coach
August 25th, 2010
2:20 pm
Mason will start before the season is over.
Holy Cow
August 25th, 2010
2:20 pm
redshirting Mason would be a mistake – a big one. Enough of the redshirts on these guys. If Mason can cut it his first year then give him shot. Richt plays favorites too much.
Villa Rica DAWG
August 25th, 2010
2:21 pm
Leaving Murray in the entire game would be a great learning experience for Murray. While it may seem silly to some when the 2nd and 3rd strings are rotating out onto the field, I DO NOT want Murray’s first time seeing 4 consequtive quarters of CFB to be against Spurrier’s team the following week…
Reality Check
August 25th, 2010
2:27 pm
It does not matter if UGA plays Mason or not. He was a 2 star pickup that UGA was desparate to sign just to fill a practice void. If AM is decent UGA will go 7-5 maybe 8-4. If he gets hurt and you have to play Mason, the Dawgs will be lucky to go 4-8. Idaho State and Louiana La. would be the only sure wins for UGA. Everyone else is laughing about the UGA program going down the drain. In 2 years, UF, Aub, Tenn, GT and SC win own you Doggies every year.
DawginLex
August 25th, 2010
2:30 pm
The reality of the situation then is closer to the way I described it?
Yes.
Yet Coach Richt is indecisive.
Whatever.
Russ the Wonder Dawg
August 25th, 2010
2:31 pm
Better play the kid, cause I seriously doubt he’ll see the field much with Murray these couple of years…and LeMay coming in next year. Might as well give him some game time reps just in case of an injury to the other two.
DawginLex
August 25th, 2010
2:31 pm
Reality check,
We appreciate your never ending obsession with all things UGA.
When Aaron Murray does well this year, will you have the balls to show back up and print your spew?
bird in the hand
August 25th, 2010
2:35 pm
I can’t believe this is even a discussion. Redshirting this kid would be the dumbest move imaginable.
Systemic
August 25th, 2010
2:47 pm
The fact that the man lacks an articulable plan for how to handle the situation amounts to indecision. Not to mention the other examples highlighted above. But you’re right: whatever…it’s you folks’ problem not mine.
DawgNation
August 25th, 2010
2:49 pm
Since Mason is getting as much time with the first team I would suspect this issue is a mute question. I don’t think CMR is even considering a red shirt as his options a very limited. Logan Grey has not the reps at QB and he doesn’t seem to be in the consideration except for a trick play or two.
Nashville4UGA
August 25th, 2010
2:49 pm
let him play this year. He is one play away from having to play anyway.