Georgia’s Cox done waiting

This is one story, told by two authors.

It is the one about the patient Georgia understudy who bites down hard on his pride, watches some other hot-shot quarterback get all the snaps and never lets the world know how difficult that can be.

Then, at the last possible moment, the good and true backup finally gets his shot, the Bulldogs win, the crowd cheers and every decision he has made seems right.

D.J. Shockley did it first, and until proved otherwise, did it best.

As Joe Cox begins work on his own version, about the best thing that any fan can hear now is Shockley saying, “Joe and I are alike in a lot of ways.”

Before even thinking about Cox’s claim on the role of 2009 starting quarterback, there is the matter of precedent.

Perfect example

Cox was in his first season at UGA when Shockley was doing his one-season stand at Sanford Stadium. For years, the whole cynical world kept telling Shockley he should transfer somewhere more welcoming to his skills. But the Atlanta kid stayed, because he felt good in Athens, and he trusted the coaches and himself enough to know that his time would come.

Shockley waited and waited and waited, like a man on the phone on hold with the cable company, listening to a four-year loop of David Greene highlights. Shockley’s rewards: one season as a starter; 10 wins; an SEC championship game MVP award; a third-place finish in the voting for AP Player of the Year; the affections of every fan who still believed in all those qualities that show up in the old school song.

Cox watched it all and studied for his own test of patience. Watched it up close. When he couldn’t get back to Charlotte for that first Thanksgiving dinner away, Cox ended up at Shockley’s College Park home.

So, now, just change all the Shockleys to Coxes, and the Greenes to Staffords. And pick up the story from there.

For the past three years, it has been Cox in the wings while pro scouts coveted Matthew Stafford’s deep-out pass. He literally was the redheaded stepchild of this offense.

Now it is Cox, 22, who is the appointed quarterback, and should he hold the job through the run-up to 2009, he, like Shockley, will have one senior season to justify his choices.

Just hours after Wednesday’s announcement that Stafford and running back Knowshon Moreno were leaving Georgia early for the NFL, Cox received a particularly meaningful text message.

“I told him that his time is now,” said Shockley, who is doing his waiting now as the Falcons’ third quarterback. “The clock starts now. Don’t wait until the summer, but start today showing guys you are ready to lead this team.”

By the end of this year, Shockley could have thumbs like knockwursts if he keeps tapping out such long sermons on his phone. And he intends to. There even is talk of a face-to-face summit soon between the two.

“I might be his No. 1 fan,” Shockley said. “I’ll be critiquing him like crazy.”

“There’s not a better person to try to be like, especially being in my situation having one year to play, waiting all this time to get a chance,” Cox said when asked about Shockley as a model. “I hope it ends up just like D.J. I definitely look up to him. My freshman year I tried to emulate everything he did. I think he handled it perfectly.”

Cox brings even less experience to his final year than did Shockley —- the line reads 432 career passing yards, five touchdowns, one interception, one 2006 comeback win against Colorado.

But, when it comes to Georgia football, it is never too early to begin vetting the quarterback in waiting.

It seems that Cox hasn’t lost a game since Reconstruction, or so it seems. “I think he lost a JV game as a freshman. That was it in high school,” said his father, Buster.

Fiery on field

At Independence High in Charlotte, he had to wait his turn until Chris Leak cleared out for Florida. Even then, he was practicing for his Georgia experience. Once Cox took the job, he went 31-0 as a starter.

In high school, Cox began demonstrating the fiery tendencies often associated with the redheaded gene. And beneath that Marine Corps-like buzz, make no mistake, he is all carrot top.

“Been like this [shorn to the scalp] since I was 12. Being a redhead, there’s not much cool stuff you can do with your hair, so I cut it off,” he said.

He would, for instance, spurn the safety of the sidelines.

“We’d ask him to run out of bounds or around tacklers, but he wanted to run tacklers over,” said Terry Robertson, one of his coaches. And once contact was made, Cox often would have well wishes for the other fella.

“Got a couple of penalties in high school for getting into it with certain people on opposing teams after plays. But I enjoyed every minute of it,” Cox said with a guilty smile.

At Georgia, Cox, after he took a redshirt as a freshman, was shuffled behind Stafford. That situation obviously wasn’t going to change for however long Stafford retained amateur status.

Thus, he began to hear the same questions Shockley did about transferring. But his answer always was the same.

Robertson remembers Cox telling him at one point, “I think I’d be a fool to leave something I love so much.”

That’s a tale Georgia has cheered hard for once with Shockley, and will again with Cox. He doesn’t have the arm of Stafford, but there seems to be an early fascination with other factors, such as his drive and demeanor. Here is a player who sees one famous rabble-rouser as a style-setter: “I’ve always looked at Brett Favre and how he played and how he went crazy on the field, and that’s just the type of guy I want to be,” Cox said.

“He’s a winner and a fighter,” said his childhood friend and now former Georgia teammate, receiver Mohamed Massaquoi. “As energetic as anyone on the field.”

A starter on spec, Cox faces a series of huge, sudden adjustments. A very hot light found him Wednesday.

“The biggest thing he’ll face,” said Shockley, someone who should know, “is fan criticism he’ll get about not proving himself yet, about not knowing if he can make it in the SEC. That will weigh on him. Once he understands that he’s the one playing, not them, he’ll be fine.

“He is going to handle it with grace, I know that much.”

Much can happen between here and the Oklahoma State game come September. The season and its dramas, and Cox’s part in them, are not even in outline form yet.

But the possibilities were written out clearly enough by Shockley. Cox is free, even encouraged, to plagiarize at will.