FOOTBALL
A. J. Green said in the locker room following the Dawgs 34-31 overtime loss to the Gators that, “every member of the team left everything they had on the field tonight.” This was a battle to the bitter end by two teams that wanted and needed a win badly, it’s what an Ali – Holyfield fight would have looked like.
It was the first time in the 88 game history of the series that an overtime period decided the outcome.
The Dawgs fought back from a 21-7 halftime deficit after watching Florida score 14 second quarter points as a result of three Georgia turnovers.
Redshirt freshman quarterback Aaron Murray had a career night (18-for-37, 313 yards, 3 TD’s) although he did throw three interceptions, his 63 yard touchdown pass to Tavarres King was the longest TD for both of them. King finished the evening with 104 yards on 3 receptions, tight end Orson Charles also went over the 100 yard mark for the first time with 6 catches for 108 yards.
Murray echoed Green’s sentiment in the locker room, "We fought our butts off all game. A lot of teams would go into halftime in a game like this and give up but not this team. It wasn't the way I wanted us to start the game with an interception, and I thought the whole first half was rocky. But we bounced back and finished strong. You have to be accurate when you play this athletic of a team. I had a little jitters and I was probably more amped up than most games, but I won't make any excuses."
Coach Richt said, "You can't question anybody's effort, you can't question anybody's heart or their nature. They did all those things. We just didn't get the job done in overtime, obviously, and they did, so credit to them."
"We felt like everything that we had planned was a good plan. It got started off a little bit rocky, and Aaron Murray didn't get a real solid start. We just let him know that you just got to settle in there and trust your protection a little bit better and if you start putting it on the money we'll be fine. And that's about what happened. We protected pretty well, we were catching pretty well, and at times we were running pretty well."
"They were going with the no huddle pace and a pretty quick pace. There was a plan for when they had someone in there at quarterback besides number 12. What they were doing early on was starting out with maybe number 8 in the backfield and we had to check for that. Then they would have number 12 jump in there and play quarterback shifting back into there, so we had to make sure we were ready to go back to the original call. Once we got a hang of what they were doing we were able to get the right calls in at the right time. It took us a little while to figure that one out."
"There's no question about their fight and their effort tonight. It was beautiful. It was great to see our boys get after it. You want to come out of here with a win. I came in here feeling like a victory would land us in Atlanta. I still believe that scenario could have happened, so we knew we were playing for an awful lot. We knew a win here was going to be a very important thing for everybody, the players and fans alike, but you have to give them the credit."
"We were pretty sure we were going to get a matchup with their safety and Kris Durham, and we felt like that was going to be a good situation. We ran A.J. Green in motion and their cornerback stayed with him, and our outside receiver became one-on-one with Durham and the safety. It was a good match up and worry of a shot. If we had placed that ball a little bit better Kris would have had an opportunity to make a play on the ball. We came back and ran one and got a couple yards. Then on third down you are trying to get in position to score a touchdown because you know a field goal might not be what it takes. When you are in those situations you just have to play ball, and they got some pressure and the ball got tipped up in the air and got picked.
"I talked to them about deciding how they are going to react to this thing. There have been some tough losses this season no doubt, and we have had some very big disappointments. We were going in the right direction and getting a lot of momentum and actually getting back in the SEC Eastern Division race. A victory here could have put us in a position to be in Atlanta, so now we have to realize that more than likely that dream is over and we just have to go and win some games."
Senior Outside Linebacker, #42 Justin Houston
"This one hurts no matter what team we were playing, but we have to forget it and get ready for Idaho State. One thing about this team I like is that we always fight hard, but a big situation for us today was losing the turnover battle. It's hard to win a game when that happens. I thought the defense looked good at times, but we have got to learn to play all 60 minutes. It hurts to lose this one, especially to those guys but we have to put it in the past."
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