Most of Georgia’s lesser seasons under Mark Richt have come with a new quarterback. The Bulldogs were 8-4 in 2001, David Greene’s first season as the starter. They were 9-5 in 2006, when the Bulldogs tried three quarterbacks before settling on Matthew Stafford. They were 8-5 in 2009, when Joe Cox replaced Stafford, and 6-7 the next year, when Aaron Murray succeeded Cox.
Technically, Hutson Mason isn’t the new No. 1 — he started against Georgia Tech and against Nebraska in the Gator Bowl after Murray tore his ACL in November — but he’s close enough. Still, Mason isn’t quite like the fledgling starters listed above. Greene and Murray were redshirt freshmen when they took over; Stafford was a freshman and Cox was a fifth-year senior who essentially kept the seat warm for Murray.
Mason mightn’t be as gifted as Greene, Stafford and Murray, but as a fifth-year senior, he’s older and presumably wiser, and he’s surely more talented than Cox. The only true antecedent for Mason is one warmly remembered. In 2005, the fifth-year senior D.J. Shockley led Georgia to the SEC championship, which is more than any Georgia quarterback has done since.
Like Shockley, Mason arrived when an incumbent redshirt freshman — Greene in Shockley’s case, Murray in Mason’s — had dibs on the job. Like Shockley, Mason was relegated to being the No. 2 behind one of Georgia’s all-time best No. 1’s. Like Shockley, Mason thought hard about transferring. Like Shockley, he stuck around.
Why stay? “It was 100 percent my faith in God,” Mason said, speaking after Georgia’s spring game Saturday. “My pride was telling me one thing, and my heart was telling me another. I’m an in-state boy (from Lassiter High), and I’ve always thought about playing for Georgia. And if I’d transferred (before last season), I’d have had to play (FBS). I had to ask myself: ‘What decision do I want to make — one year (of starting) at Georgia or two years in (FBS)?’ It was all about faith.”
As deflating as Murray’s injury was to the 2013 Bulldogs, it might have been the best thing that could have happened to the 2014 team. It enabled Mason to make two pressurized starts, and the first could hardly have begun worse.
“There’s nothing like being down 20-0 in your first start and everybody’s looking around wondering what was happening,” Richt said, referring to the Tech game. “It was better for that to happen to him last year than this year.”
Steadying as he went, Mason led Georgia to a rousing double-overtime victory at Bobby Dodd Stadium. The Gator Bowl was less satisfying, though Mason threw for 320 yards in that 24-19 loss. The ensuing spring practice has only deepened Richt’s belief that his new quarterback is primed for his much-deferred moment.
“The other two scrimmages were even better than today,” Richt said of Mason, “and today he did well.”
Mason completed 18 of 27 passes for 241 yards and a touchdown Saturday against the No. 1 defense, though it must be said that the No. 1 defense played with one hand behind its back. It wasn’t supposed to hit the quarterback, and new coordinator Jeremy Pruitt was clearly disinclined to show Clemson and South Carolina — Georgia’s first two opponents come the real season — anything of schematic worth. The offenses should have held sway and did.
Said Mason: “I thought it was a good day for me. But I wish I’d been more accurate on the deep throws.”
So now you’re asking: Is Hutson Mason good enough to take Georgia to the SEC Championship game? The answer is yes. He’s not as nimble as Murray, and he lacks the pocket presence — given that he has barely played in four years, how could he not? — of his predecessor. But Mason has enough of an arm to make all the throws this offense requires, and it was instructive that his touchdown pass came on the sort of ball Murray delivered expertly — a back-shoulder throw.
In the grand scheme, spring games mean next to nothing. If this one carried a tad more weight than usual, it was only because of Mason. Teams minus a longtime starting quarterback usually are viewed with skepticism. Mason’s two starts proved so promising that Georgia figures to enter the new season favored to reclaim the East. (South Carolina fans will protest, but the Gamecocks lost their quarterback, too.)
Nothing that happened here Saturday offered any reason to believe that Mason cannot take the Bulldogs where they want to go. He’s not the garden-variety new QB.
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