CLOSING IN ON SEC RECORDS
The top five players in SEC history in these categories:
Career passing yards
1. David Greene, Georgia 11,528
2. Aaron Murray, Georgia 11,429
3. Chris Leak, Florida 11,213
4. Peyton Manning, Tennessee 11,201
5. Eric Zeier, Georgia 11,153
Career touchdown passes
1. Danny Wuerffel, Florida 114
2. Aaron Murray, Georgia 106
3. Peyton Manning, Tennessee 89
4. Chris Leak, Florida 88
4. Tim Tebow, Florida 88
Career total offense
1. Tim Tebow, Florida 12,232
2. Aaron Murray, Georgia 11,659
3. Chris Leak, Florida 11,380
4. David Greene, Georgia 11, 270
5. Peyton Manning, Tennessee 11,020
Note: Zeier's college career was 1991-94, Manning's 1994-97, Greene's 2001-04, Leak's 2003-06, Tebow's 2006-09 and Murray's 2010-13.
At some point in Saturday’s game — probably early — Georgia’s Aaron Murray figures to break the SEC career record for passing yards. He’ll begin the game at Tennessee only 99 yards short of the record held by former Georgia quarterback David Greene.
“I’m excited for him,” Greene said this week. “If somebody is going to break the record, I’m glad it’s one of our guys, a Georgia guy. And I hope he doesn’t just break it — I hope he shatters it.”
Greene passed for 11,528 yards from 2001-04, breaking the SEC career record previously held by Tennessee’s Peyton Manning. And now Murray, with 11,429 yards, is poised to surpass Greene’s mark in just the fifth game of his senior season.
It’s not the only major SEC career record that, barring injury, Murray should break — er, shatter — in the weeks ahead. He’s eight touchdown passes short of the league record of 114 set by Florida’s Danny Wuerffel in 1993-96. And he’s 573 yards short of the league record for total offense: 12,232 yards by Florida’s Tim Tebow in 2006-09.
Murray “is playing quarterback about as well as you could ever ask a college kid to play the position, and he’s doing it week in and week out,” said Greene, now 31 and in the commercial insurance business in Atlanta. “A testament to him — and the reason he’s coming up on breaking all of these records — is that he’s played well for all four years of his career, and that’s rare.”
Murray knows the records are within reach, if only because the numbers-crunchers keep reminding him. He balances an appreciation of SEC history with a general disinterest in statistics that measure anything other than wins and losses.
“It’s crazy to think about,” Murray said of his imminent record-breaking. “I’ve never been a guy to worry about stats. It’s all about winning, winning, winning. But definitely it’s an honor to be alongside some of those guys like Greene, like Peyton, like Wuerffel, guys who did some unbelievable things while they were at their colleges.”
(Among the things Greene did at Georgia: He won at Tennessee on the famous “Hobnail Boot” pass as a redshirt freshman in 2001, led the Bulldogs to their first SEC championship in 20 years in 2002 and finished his career with the major-college record for wins by a starting quarterback with 42, topped by Texas’ Colt McCoy five years later.)
When Murray returned for his senior season, rather than enter the NFL draft, his motivation wasn’t to set a bunch of passing records. It was to win a couple of championships: SEC and BCS. Those goals remain open because Murray led the Bulldogs to September wins over top-10 opponents South Carolina and LSU, throwing four touchdown passes against each.
Murray has passed for more than 3,000 yards in each of the past three seasons, becoming the first SEC quarterback with three consecutive 3,000-yard seasons, and is on pace for more than 4,000 this season. After a losing season (6-7) as a redshirt freshman in 2010, he has led Georgia to a 25-7 record since, with two of the losses in SEC Championship games.
Greene and Murray met shortly after Murray enrolled at UGA, and they talk or text from time to time. Murray describes Greene as a mentor. Greene describes himself as a fan of Murray.
“The way he’s playing this year, there’s a lot of Sunday-type throws that he’s making week in and week out,” said Greene, who spent four NFL seasons with four teams but never played in a regular-season game. “He’s completing balls in windows that really are not even open, but he’s still finding a way to get it in there.
“And being in his fourth year of playing, he can recognize everything the defense is about to do and counter it with another play. He’s putting (Georgia) in positions to be successful, and he’s got the athletes behind him who can make those plays. If the offensive line dominates the line of scrimmage, I think we score 40 points every single game.
“He’s playing as well as anybody in the country at the quarterback position,” added Greene, who is dabbling in TV work for the first time this fall, supplementing his “day job” with a gig on the pregame and postgame coverage of Texas games on ESPN’s Longhorn Network.
Texas played Thursday night, so Greene will be at home Saturday. He plans to watch Georgia-Tennessee on TV and to have no regrets when his SEC career yardage record is broken.
“I’ll be honest with you: It’s not a record I even think about. It never really comes up in conversation,” Greene said. Murray likely will view the record with similar detachment once it is his.
“You know me. It’s all about the next game,” he said.
