Now Hutson Mason is ‘next man up’ for Georgia

In the blink of an eye — or, more like it, in the twist of a limb — a Senior Night celebration starring Aaron Murray turned into a hurried battlefield promotion for Georgia junior quarterback Hutson Mason.

Mason, a most patient understudy since signing out of Lassiter four years ago, was supposed to get his turn next season. But he is a member of the 2013 Georgia Bulldogs, whose depth chart is written in chalk and changed often, like a restaurant’s daily special.

There will be more difficult challenges to come, for an untested Mason was more than enough to handle Kentucky down the stretch. The Bulldogs may have been able to do without a quarterback at all and still come close to the eventual 56-10 margin. The Wildcats did provide plenty of confidence building blocks, and at least Mason took advantage, finishing 9-of-12 for 136 yards and a touchdown.

Georgia Tech looms Saturday, Mason’s potential first start coming against the in-state rival at a stadium just down the road from his Cobb County home.

If needed, he will serve. “Yeah, um-huh,” Mason said, when asked if he would leave Sanford Stadium with the idea he would start against Tech.

“Nothing changes because I’ve been preparing since I’ve been here like I’ve always been a starter. It just might be me in there (at practice) without Murray, which will be a little weird,” he said.

There are strange forces at work this season determined to deny Georgia even one game free of fret. There can be no score so laughable, no opponent so pliant that these Bulldogs still can’t find grief.

Here was Murray, the NCAA’s active leader in starts, adding to his cache of records with four first-half touchdown passes against Kentucky. It seemed briefly that he and the Bulldogs might actually be allowed one shining, simple Saturday. Then the ironman crumbled, having all these years survived the ravages of Auburn and Alabama, Florida and South Carolina only to succumb to the feckless Wildcats.

His arms draped around the shoulders of two team trainers, his left leg limp and useless — was that really to be the last sight of Aaron Murray in Georgia red?

At the crossroads of all the warring emotions in this game was Mason. He was waved in once by the coaches when Murray tweaked the back he banged up last week in his desperate touchdown dive against Auburn last week. Only, Murray waved him back to the sidelines. But eventually he came across the injury that he could not will away.

What was Mason supposed to think when he saw the starter helped off the field, so obviously done for at least this night? No time for sorrow. He had a play to run.

“It’s definitely … I don’t know if I have an answer to it yet,” he said when asked about the feel of that moment.

“It’s like a fairy tale gone wrong, so to speak, for Murray. I don’t know what the injury is, don’t know how serious it is, but you hate to see something like that on Senior Night, at home, at the end of the season when he is about to start training for the draft. It’s very tough. I know how hard he works.”

Mason came into his inheritance with 1:05 left in the first half. Plenty of time to do serious work against the likes of Kentucky. In 55 seconds, Mason drove the Bulldogs 55 yards for a touchdown, showing enough sense to pass the ball to Todd Gurley, who went the final 24 yards.

Except for running out the clock at game’s end, Georgia scored on each of its and Mason’s possessions in the second half.

If Mason is indeed the man to face Tech, he will go into his first start with 11 partial games worth of experience, and a career line of 51-of-82, 705 yards, five touchdowns and one interception.

If it’s Mason rather than his good friend Murray against Tech, “I think it will be a little bit different, but don’t necessarily know that it will be weird,” tight end Arthur Lynch said. “Hutson, we’re used to him. He’s a familiar face to this program. He has the skill.”