Lost season for Bulldogs ends with Liberty loss

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By Tim Tucker

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

MEMPHIS -- Georgia's football season ended as it began. Badly. Very badly.

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Georgia cornerback Branden Smith (1) is pulled by the jersey after intercepting a Central Florida pass during the Liberty Bowl NCAA college football game Friday, Dec. 31, 2010, in Memphis, Tenn. Central Florida won 10-6.

Stephen M. Dowell, AP Georgia cornerback Branden Smith (1) is pulled by the jersey after intercepting a Central Florida pass during the Liberty Bowl NCAA college football game Friday, Dec. 31, 2010, in Memphis, Tenn. Central Florida won 10-6.

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The Bulldogs, who started the season by losing four of their first five games, lost their finale here Friday, falling to Central Florida 10-6 in the Liberty Bowl.

The loss -- to a Conference USA team that had never before won a bowl game -- dropped Georgia's record to 6-7, giving the Bulldogs their first losing season in 14 years and punctuating a dismal year on and off the field for the UGA program.

"It's embarrassing to be part of a losing season. It absolutely is," said kicker Blair Walsh, whose two field goals accounted for all the points the Bulldogs could muster against Central Florida.

"We're going to start a new philosophy here in January, and we'll go from there," Walsh added. "Our attitude needs to change. ... [Because] it was UCF and they're Conference USA, I think we felt we were ‘entitled' to win this game. You can't feel that way. They're a great team, they absolutely are, but we need to perform better and win. At the end of the day, you’re playing football -- you're not playing, ‘Whose conference is better?'"

Georgia, which had scored 30 or more points in seven consecutive games, was no match for the Central Florida defense. Until quarterback Aaron Murray hit wide receiver Kris Durham on a 30-yard fourth-down pass with 45 seconds to play as the Bulldogs tried frantically to pull out a last-gasp win, Georgia's longest pass play of the game was 18 yards and its longest running play 12 yards.

Tied 3-3 at halftime, Georgia took a 6-3 lead on Walsh's second field goal, a 41-yarder into a strong wind in the third quarter. But Central Florida claimed the lead for good by scoring the game's only touchdown on an 11-play, 65-yard drive in the fourth quarter, capped by a 10-yard run by tailback Latavius Murray with nine minutes to play.

Georgia was forced to punt on its next two possessions, but the Bulldogs mounted a threat in the game's final two minutes. A pair of fourth-down pass completions -- a 14-yarder to A.J. Green and the 30-yarder to Durham -- got the Bulldogs to the Central Florida 29-yard line.

At that point, "I was, like, ‘Oh my God, we're going to win this,'" Green said.

Not this season.

The next four plays brought a sack and three incomplete passes by Murray, including a desperation heave that was batted down by Central Florida in the end zone on the game's final play.

Thus ended a lost season, Georgia's first losing season under coach Mark Richt.

"We're all disappointed," Richt said afterward. "We didn't want to finish with a loss. We didn't want to finish with a losing record. No one probably would have predicted that.

"There's reasons why we ended up the way we did. We've got to make changes. We've got to make sure that doesn't happen again in the future. When you start saying ‘change,' that doesn't necessarily mean personnel. ... It's more of how we go about our business. We're going to improve. We're going to get Georgia where it belongs. 2010 is over. 2011 is upon us. And I think everybody is looking forward to that."

For Central Florida, the win was its first in four bowl appearances, all since George O'Leary -- the former Georgia Tech coach -- took over the Knights' program in 2004.

"This is a great win for our program," O'Leary said, "but also for our conference."

Central Florida held Georgia to one of its two lowest-scoring outputs of the season. The Bulldogs also were limited to six points in a Sept. 11 loss to South Carolina but did not have Green, who was serving a four-game NCAA suspension, for that game.

In what likely was his final college game, Green -- widely expected to enter the 2011 NFL draft -- caught eight passes against Central Florida. But the Knights did not allow him to spring free for any sort of long, game-turning play.

"They came out with some pretty good schemes to keep me intact," Green said. "They had a real good game plan for me. They kept me in front of them and just contained me real well."

Murray, the brightest spot in the dreary Georgia season, had an erratic finale. He completed his first seven passes, but only 14 of 31 thereafter. Having not thrown an interception in the previous three games, he threw two.