Colt McCoy had big praise for UGA’s Aaron Murray

I know you don’t need any convincing that Georgia’s quarterback competition will be a hugely interesting story line of spring football practice. But, just for the record, ESPN’s Joe Schad includes it as one of his Top 10 Story Lines to Watch in spring football nationally.

To be precise, it comes in at No. 5 on Schad’s list posted today on ESPN.com:

5. Georgia Quarterback Competition: (Georgia begins March 4)

Former Texas quarterback Colt McCoy once told me Georgia redshirt freshman Aaron Murray was one of the most impressive players he’s ever seen. Murray and classmate Zach Mettenberger each have a shot to beat out athletic junior Logan Gray. Murray is a complete prospect. Mettenberger is a pocket-passer with a howitzer arm.

So McCoy told Schad that Murray is one of the most impressive players he’s ever seen. That sort of fuels the anticipation for G-Day, doesn’t it?

Schad’s No. 1 story line to watch in spring football,  by the way: Florida QB John Brantley replacing Tim Tebow.

An interview with Aaron Murray.

List of UGA players who will be sidelined or limited in spring practice.

UGA ranks ahead of UNC — in basketball, of all things.

355 comments Add your comment

BuLLdawg

February 24th, 2010
5:22 am

by

PeachJam

February 20th, 2010 10:45 pm

“Dawg Fan here.”

“Let’s be realistic here, we need better coaching. With the horrible year we just had”

“I wish Richt would go back to calling plays.”

BuLLdawg

February 24th, 2010
5:23 am

by

Island Dawg

February 21st, 2010 12:17 am

“ If our coaches can’t find and play the best we need to find coaches who will’

#2 BAMA FAN

February 24th, 2010
5:26 am

I hope the Murray kid wins a lot of ball games and plays Bama in the SEC title game!! RTR

BuLLdawg

February 24th, 2010
5:26 am

by

Todd

February 21st, 2010 8:16 am

“ LET’S TAKE THE FIRST STEP, GA BEATING UF AND TENN.”

“YOU KNOW WHAT BILL, AS A GA GRAD AND LETTERMAN IN 1983, IT HASN’T HAPPENDED YET.”

BuLLdawg

February 24th, 2010
5:27 am

by

SagaciousSam

February 21st, 2010 12:54 pm

“We do need to address some offensive deficiencies as we have done with the defense.”

BuLLdawg

February 24th, 2010
5:28 am

by

ViningsDAWG

February 21st, 2010 11:18 am

“Whatever you are smoking, stop! It is not good for you. “

“We have some problems to correct on this team before we can even think of a SEC championship.”

“Serious problems!”

BuLLdawg

February 24th, 2010
5:30 am

by

UGA class of 71 & 73

February 21st, 2010 9:45 am

“Unless I see some entirely new coaching and player attitudes around UGA, we will lose”

“UGA players and coaches ( not alumni) have a lot to prove.”

BuLLdawg

February 24th, 2010
5:36 am

by

G DOG

February 22nd, 2010 12:00 am

“CMR did a great job in hireing todd grantham as dc.But uga will never win a national title with BoBo calling the plays. He’s not an sec level oc.”

BuLLdawg

February 24th, 2010
5:37 am

by

Pago Flyer

February 21st, 2010 4:51 pm

“If we can’t beat UF/UT then how can we be #1?”

BuLLdawg

February 24th, 2010
5:38 am

by

DominationContinues

February 21st, 2010 3:51 pm

“Pretty far fetched to entertain the delusion that UGA will compete for the MNC, let alone the SEC title. CMR just doesn’t have that go-for-the-throat, killer instinct style of coaching that it takes to prevail in this extremely tough conference. Urban and Nick both do and will face each other in the Georgia Dome during December for years to come.”

BuLLdawg

February 24th, 2010
5:39 am

by

Rod

February 21st, 2010 3:15 pm

“All of you ignorant thugs that voted not until Richt is gone should support another team which Im sure you do anyway.”

BuLLdawg

February 24th, 2010
5:40 am

by

bruce mac

February 21st, 2010 2:10 pm

“ UGA or Bama would not fire CMR with this record. He probably would be getting more heat at Bama then UGA but he would not be fired yet. If he doesn’t turn it around he will be under pressure at UGA soon”

BuLLdawg

February 24th, 2010
5:41 am

by

How2fish

February 22nd, 2010 10:05 am

“Until we can control our penalties and start winning the turnover battles..I’m holding my breath.”

BuLLdawg

February 24th, 2010
5:41 am

by

trey

February 22nd, 2010 12:19 pm

“Remember how they were during the season when they were ranked as #1? They got so caught up in the hype that they forgot to play football at key times when it counted. And don’t forget that Boobo is still the OC.”

BuLLdawg

February 24th, 2010
5:42 am

by

38 Yardline Dawg

February 22nd, 2010 3:01 pm

“Good grief. Until the Dawgs figure out a way to beat TN, FL AND AU in the same year…championship talk is stupid at best. I don’t welcome all the other teams’ fans on here calling us delusional, but they’re right at this point.”

BuLLdawg

February 24th, 2010
5:43 am

by

Old Dawg

February 22nd, 2010 3:04 pm

“Back to the 2011 post, a lot of the problem we’ve had with fans throughout the country are over-zealous folks who hold onto false hopes of winning every thing every season. History and logic prove that not to be true. In other words, please stop fueling the flame ignited by out of control fans!”

BuLLdawg

February 24th, 2010
5:44 am

by

James Brown

February 22nd, 2010 11:16 pm

“LSU is a recruiting juggernaut. Florida is Florida. Bama is Bama. Arkansas and Auburn are building momentum. Ole Miss is winning under Houston Nutt. Tennessee is the wild card of the bunch; we’ll have to see how their coaching change pans out. So…
At this point, the only teams that I can definitively say Georgia is ahead of are Vandy, Kentucky, South Carolina, and Mississippi State. South Carolina returns just about everybody, and the coaches at the other three aren’t exactly shabby.”

“I have been consistently critical of Bobo’s playcalling. I was also critical of Richt’s at times, as well. Too many long bombs that go incomplete when the running game is working; too many telegraphed screen passes on first down that go for negative to minimal gains; too many holding penalties that put us in a hole or negate big plays. The defense’s woes have been well documented so I won’t even go into that. Are the problems fixable? Absolutely. Will they be fixed? Who knows. Time will tell the tale”

BuLLdawg

February 24th, 2010
5:45 am

by

The Watergirl

February 23rd, 2010 12:47 am

“As a UGA fan/alum im disappointed by how terrible we evaluate talent on offense, how can we red-shirt knowshon and play Marlon Brown for 3 catches. Richt moves players around to different positons like musical chairs, and if I was a recruit I would be confused when I found out that I will be coach by Bryan McClendon, a wide receiver, is Running Backs’ Coach. John Lilly, a quarterback, is our Tight Ends’ Coach. Tony Ball, a Running Back, is our Wide Receivers’ Coach.”

BuLLdawg

February 24th, 2010
5:46 am

by

joe robby

February 23rd, 2010 4:17 am

“We just went to Shreveport. We’ve got lots more things to be worried about”

BuLLdawg

February 24th, 2010
5:47 am

by

Suck it nerd

February 23rd, 2010 11:52 am

“No chance. We have to beat UF first. They have our number. In the past 10 years we have had 4 or 5 teams that could have won but UF made the plays that had to be made to win. We didn’t. Until we can get past them consistantly, we have no NC hopes.”

BuLLdawg

February 24th, 2010
5:47 am

by

Westside Jax Dawg

February 20th, 2010 9:20 pm

“I’m sick of living down here in Jacksonville and having to put up all these obnoxious gator fans every year after another blowout loss by richt—he better start beating florida on a regular basis, or damon evans needs to clean house.”

BuLLdawg

February 24th, 2010
5:48 am

by

SOUTHGADAWG88

February 20th, 2010 7:56 pm

“IMO people went on and on about WM but in all the big games we lost over last few years…FLA,AU,Tenn,LSU etc it was ACTUALLY the Offense that sucked and inability to score points or move the ball effectively is why we lost.Some folks may be more concerned with “window dressing” IE losing by 3 or 4 instead of 15-20 well whopee do as far as I’m concerned.A loss is a friggin loss.The Offense is.. was ..and will continue to be the problem until the OL and running game is up to par.I don’t care if we had 3 AJ Greens.. we are not going to win ANYTHING without strong OL play and a running game. My major knock against CMR since he has been at UGA is we don’t run the ball enough.”

BuLLdawg

February 24th, 2010
5:50 am

by

RW

February 20th, 2010 7:43 pm

“I have lost faith in him taking us to the top. I am not saying he is a bad coach. If you could please explain to me the 2008 season and the constant gimmicks. Also please explain to me why the team flat out just doesnt have any fire in big games. I think that has everything to do with CMR.”

BuLLdawg

February 24th, 2010
5:51 am

by

JC in Powder Springs

February 20th, 2010 2:06 pm

“I don’t believe Bama’s QB McElroy was any better or worse than Joe Cox (McE was better coached and had better playcalling). Ingram is no better or worse than Knowshon. Bama and dawgs have similar talent – the difference has been coaching. Grantham, Lakatos and Belin won’t be a problem. It’s Bobo that worries me – he’s simply not an SEC-level OC. If Richt resumes playcalling or Dawgs somehow overcome Bobo’s lousy playcalling”

BuLLdawg

February 24th, 2010
5:54 am

Jim Donnan LOST 13 games his last 4 seasons & we FIRED HIM FOR IT saying we wanted more.

Coach Richt LOST 14 games his last 4 seasons here, now.

BuLLdawg

February 24th, 2010
5:57 am

by

icedawg

February 21st, 2010 10:21 pm

“What have you been smokin’? There has to be a dramatic, a very dramatic turnaround on the defense, a consistent and productive running game and a QB who will not self-destruct. What’s the likelihood of all of those happening? It’d be a miracle. It’d be a miracle. NC, not likely”

BuLLdawg

February 24th, 2010
5:58 am

by

UGAalum2004

February 21st, 2010 10:27 am

“I’ll add that Richt needs to learn to run his program more like a business. Where the great college head coaches excel is in their ability to build structures within their program and hire great talent. And Richt has been unable to demonstrate this to me.”

“Quality assistants are the ones that teach players fundamentals and essentially run the day to day operations of the team. And if you don’t have enough of those guys in place you’ll see the results.. And if neither Murray or Mettenburger pan out, then Richt is in trouble.”

BuLLdawg

February 24th, 2010
6:01 am

by

Adding a wrinkle…

February 21st, 2010 10:58 am

“I think by now it’s obvious that what you see is what you get w/ CMR, he’s a good coach, but he’ll never be a great coach…but his coaching style just doesn’t lend to getting to the Big Dance, but sometimes you have to pull the trigger, look at what happened at Auburn, look at UT, schools who had NC winning coaches…these schools felt that the programs were either not going in the right direction, or they didn’t like what they saw with the present coaches, and felt this was the time to move in another direction…take your lumps and move on and hopefully up”

BuLLdawg

February 24th, 2010
6:03 am

by

Jeff

February 21st, 2010 11:36 am

“Here we go again……seems ike I have heard this song and dance before. Yes I am a diehard Dawg fan but I have come to realize that we will never get to the next level. For us, its always next year with a bunch of excuses….we are Dance champions, penalty champions, smack talk champions, turnover champions….i wish I could beleive it but face the facts…..I love UGA and will always root for them”

BuLLdawg

February 24th, 2010
6:04 am

by

Snoop Dawg

February 21st, 2010 12:08 am

“As bad as the Bulldogs are, they will definitely beat the Georgia Tech thugs next year with that stupid offense that the Jackets have. It will not even be close, since Georgia Tech plays in a junior league–the ACC.”

“Otherwise, Richt is going to drive UGA right into the SEC cellar. I cannot understand why the Bulldog Nation wants to keep Da Preacha Man when he obviously cannot coach or even provide a presence of authority on the sideline as if he was empty of emotion. Once Richt is fired, the future will be bright again as the State of Georgia is the very best for football talent.”

BuLLdawg

February 24th, 2010
6:06 am

by

South ga boy in the atl

February 21st, 2010 3:12 am

“As a 47 yr old life long Ga fan, I have given up hope on the Dawgs winning a nat champ anytime soon because the truth is we don’t have an elite head coach and a nat champ cannot be won without one. It pains me to say this but in the cold light of objectivity CMR is on a slightly better than avg coach, and he only rates that because he has always been a great recruiter. I was as guilty as anyone when it came to making excuses for him thru the yrs. I think back to the yr he finally broke thru and beat the hated gators and won the SEC but a stupid loss to UT, AT HOME, without their starting QB kept us from playing for the nat champ. And why, because they weren’t ready to play, too many penalties, didn’t block consistantly, poor tackling. It all sounds familiar now but I made excuses for him like a lot of people did. But I saw the light when I took my sons to the ALA game in 08 and sat dazed at halftime (down 31-0) wondering why I had shelled out big money to see the worst half of performance of any GA game I had ever seen. That team that had enough talent to start out NO 1, finish 9-3 with 3 terrible losses, and could have easily had 5 losses with their terrible play at AUB and KY made me finally admit that the team was poorly coached. So last yr was no suprise to me. A team that so often can’t tackle, can’t block, can make stupid penalties, can choose to make awful mental errors at the absolute worst time goes back to it’s head coach. CMR is one of the finest men in the state as a person. However, his teams, too often, don’t fear him, show a lack of self discipline, and don’t do the little things on a consistant basis. Therefore I gave up to big dreams with my Dawgs as long as CMR is there. Mediocreties of the world I give you Mark Richt. May his reign end soon.”

BuLLdawg

February 24th, 2010
6:08 am

Yeah.

It’s just me.

That’s right.

Keep telling yourself that.

14 LOSSES the last 4 years now for Coach Richt.

It’s the OFFENSE.

BuLLdawg

February 24th, 2010
6:34 am

I had NO SAY in it superDawg. I simply reported what was said by 28 percent of us Bulldog fans yesterday, sir. I will say this, however. 14 LOSSES the last 4 years is totally unacceptable in his 10th year now. I will also say that the Offensive Coaching Staff should have been FIRED. If Coach Richt suffers another 3 and a half losses this season, he can second guess himself on sticking with this Offensive Coaching Staff. I like Coach Richt. It was an error of loyalty sticking with the Offensive Coaching Staff. Now, go try to ignore everyone else’s quotes please superDawg. Go ahead. Try.

Mark Richt

February 24th, 2010
6:41 am

BuLLdawg I know you are upset with Toyota,go buy a Ford.

BuLLdawg

February 24th, 2010
6:50 am

Excuse me

There are 50 quotes from 50 Georgia Bulldog fans there in a row.

Spike

February 24th, 2010
7:02 am

You nerds run your big mouths all you want. Eight out of nine and counting. We beat your overrated #7 arses in your stadium on national TV. UGA-30. ACC Champs-24. Still stings, doesn’t it?

superDawg

February 24th, 2010
7:02 am

BuLLdawg the changes have been made to put UGA back in contention for SEC titles.If Coach Richt takes over play calling then you will see major improvement in the W-L stats.Aaron Murray will be better than Stafford.

Flrida Ranked #93 in Red Zone Offense

February 24th, 2010
7:18 am

Sure, and the Gators will be fine with their #93 ranked red zone offense.

No wonder Bama crushed the Gators.

Whatever.

Gator in the Hootch

February 24th, 2010
7:21 am

It is nearly spring and hope again rings eternal for Georgia fans. I am happy for you. It’s been that way since 1980 for you guys.

I do believe Murray is special QB and has the chance to be a very good SEC QB. Better than that, the kid is a natural born leader, something Stafford never was. He is also very smart. He is brittle and does tend to get injured easily, which is a concern. And I believe Georgia will be a strong team in 2010 and have a chance in Jax. But they have a lot of people to replace on D, especially on the DL.

Sorry, repeating phrase poster, Brantley will contend for the All-SEC QB position this year. And Florida’s passing game will be significantly better with Brantley, who is a pure, accruate passer with a strong, NFL arm. No one throws a more accurate pass than Brantley, especailly the deep throw. And you WILL see a lot more “I” formations this year and a different kind of running game as well, with Moody and Gillesie being the featured backs in the I and Demps being the shotgun RB. I am not a Rainey fan. He is no Harvin….and I laugh when phrase man says Brandon Smith is better than Percy. Wow! On last check, Percy was a starter and all-SEC player as a freshman and is now NFL Rookie of the Year. Brandon Smith did not even start on your team as a freshman. Get real on that one, dude.

John "Mr. Untested" Brantley

February 24th, 2010
7:22 am

With the Florida Fublers, no one in the SEC East is worried.

their RB’s fumble the ball more than they run it.

1 running play to the RB’s in the SEC Championship game.

1 running play to the RB’s.

In an entire SEC Champ game.

WOW!

About Aaron Murray

February 24th, 2010
7:23 am

Murray is the #1 most talented AND TESTED against REAL 5AAAAA competition QB in America.

Much less the SEC.

McCoy got it right.

Murray is “one of the most impressive players he has ever seen”.

Why John Brantley Will Fail

February 24th, 2010
7:29 am

First, he’s untested. He’s NEVER played tough competition in high school or college. 2B in high school, Charleston Southern in college.

Second, Florida’s running game struggles loom large. Meyer is afraid to hand them the bal because they fumble too much.

Third, the WR’s and TE’s arn’t as tested and productive as UGA’s.

Florida Ranked #75 in Red Zone Defense

February 24th, 2010
7:32 am

Florida is one of the worst teams in the SEC East in BOTH Red Zone scording & Red Zone Defense.

Ranked #93 in one, #75 in the other.

Not good enough to win the SEC.

Dawg Tired

February 24th, 2010
7:34 am

I’m not listening to Joe Shad. The only person I’m listening to is BuLLdawg. BTW, have we hired BuLLdawg as Head Coach yet? If not, why not?

Mass Exodus Hits Gators in 2010

February 24th, 2010
7:34 am

the Gators have lost:
5 starters on offense
7 starters on defense
1 starter on special teams
5 jrs to the NFL
5 Coaches quit, especially irreplacable Charlie Strong

Branden Smith, UGA's Percy Harvin, 12.2 ypc

February 24th, 2010
7:37 am

UF hasn’t been able to find another Percy Harvin, so they continue to not be able to beat a top 10 team since 2008.

UGA has Branden Smith averaging 12.2 ypc. Percy was around 10 ypc.

Branden was a Parade All Amercian, 4.2 40 yard dash, ranked #1 athlete in High School.

Dawg Tired

February 24th, 2010
7:39 am

Not to disagree with a genius, A/K/A BuLLdawg, but I guarantee you that we will not lose 3 and a 1/2 games this year. Unlike many folks on here, I have no idea as to how many games we will win or lose, but I know we will not lose 3.5 games.

Papadawg

February 24th, 2010
7:42 am

Why are you fans hating on Bobo. The offense was the only bright spot last year in spite of a average at best QB. The Dawgs have all the pieces coming back with a for sure better QB even if he is young. Time is about up for all Dawg haters cause we had our down year now we’re gearing up for better days and all you teckies, gators and the rest of you who are enjoying our sucky year will have to go back into the septic tank with yellow fuzz

If Meyer's So Good, Why Does He Schedule Charleston Southern?

February 24th, 2010
7:43 am

Meyer hasn’t beat a team that finished in the top 10 during the season since 2008.

Meyer went 3-5 in his 1st 3 years at Florida against teams with a .750 winning %. So he schedules 1 top 10 team per year now.

The rest are teams like Charleston Southern, Troy, and florida International.

Gators Had 5 Fumbles Against Troy

February 24th, 2010
7:47 am

5 fumbles against a team like Troy? Wow. Gators are in deep trouble at RB.

No wonder Meyer only called 1 running play for the RB’s in the SEC Championship against Bama.

He doesn’t trust his RB’s, neither do I.