FOOTBALL
Margin of Victory: With a 48-3 victory, Georgia’s 45-point win tonight matched the largest margin in the series history (45-0 in 1976 here) and tied the biggest in an SEC game under Coach Richt. The Dawgs beat Kentucky 62-17 in 2004. Overall, Georgia leads the series with Vanderbilt 53-18-2. Georgia improves to 4-0 for the first time since 2008 and the sixth time under Richt.
Freshmen Sensation: True freshman tailback Todd Gurley went over 100 yards for the third time in his career after finishing with a career-high 130 yards and two touchdowns on 16 carries (8.1 avg.). He now has six scoring runs on the year. Gurley came in tied for second in the SEC in scoring (TDs) with a 10.0 average. Fellow true freshman tailback Keith Marshall also bolted for a 52-yard scoring run late in the first quarter and finished with 10 carries for 82 yards and a pair of scores. Marshall’s second career touchdown was the longest run since Gurley had a 55-yard touchdown in the opener versus Buffalo.
40+ In Four Straight: Georgia has now scored 40+ points in four consecutive games for the first time in school history. The Dawgs came into the game averaging 47.3 points a game, which was second in the SEC behind LSU (48.3) who edged Auburn tonight 12-10. After piling up a school record 713 total yards on offense versus Florida Atlantic last week, the Dawgs finished with 567 yards tonight. Also of note, the Dawgs final scoring drive of the first half was a 12-play, season-long 96-yards.
Stingy Defense: The Dawgs held Vanderbilt to three points and just 136 yards on 29 plays in the opening half and blanked the Commodores in the second half. In Georgia’s previous three games, opponents scored 16, 10 and 14 points (Buffalo, Missouri and Florida Atlantic) in the first two quarters. The Commodores finished with just 3 points and 337 yards. Georgia shut out Florida Atlantic in the 2nd half last week too.
Murray Hitting Targets: Junior quarterback Aaron Murray connected on his first 12 passes, which is No. 3 on Georgia’s all-time list behind 15 (Quincy Carter vs. LSU, 1998; Eric Zeier vs. Georgia Tech, 1993). He finished 18-for-24 with 250 yards and two touchdowns in only three quarters of play after Georgia built a 48-3 lead. Murray hit senior flanker Tavarres King for a 22-yard score early in the third period. He then sent a 6-yard strike to senior splitend Marlon Brown to put UGA up 34-3 in the third quarter. The scoring strikes put Murray into sole possession of the No. 2 spot in school history with 69 career touchdowns (David Greene, 72, 2001-04). Brown finished with the third 100-yard game of his career and the second this year after snagging five catches for 114 yards. King has a team-leading three touchdown catches this season and 15th in his career. He had four catches for 58 yards.
Leading Tackles: Sophomore inside linebacker Amarlo Herrera had a team-high eight tackles while junior outside linebacker Jarvis Jones was next with seven tackles, 1 sack and 3 tackles for a loss.
Injuries: Senior defensive end Abry Jones (left ankle) went down in the third quarter and did not return.
Game Captains: Junior quarterback Aaron Murray, sophomore strong safety Corey Moore, junior right guard Chris Burnette and senior defensive end Abry Jones served as Georgia’s captains.
Next Week: Georgia (4-0, 2-0 SEC) plays host to Tennessee at 3:30 p.m. (CBS).
Coach Mark Richt
“Start to finish, they all played so hard. We played with our blood a little hot, which was good. They got after it every snap and they played hard. I’m really proud of everyone. It was a great prep week. I don’t have any complaints at all. We had a good plan and everybody flat got after it. That’s the way you play Georgia football right there. … The offense was clicking and the defense was getting after them. It was a complete victory for our team.”
“We talked about how this is the first game of seven in a row in the conference and how important it is to win every single one of them to get where we want to go. But you have to take them one at a time. We have a lot of respect for Vanderbilt.”
“The numbers show that we’re executing well. You can’t do what we’re doing without good blocking and tackling. But it’s early yet. We have to keep our focus. Our focus has been to get better daily. If we can keep that while we win, hopefully we can finish and reach our full potential.”
“We wanted to make amends on special teams, and we played so much better than a year ago. We certainly vindicated ourselves from a year ago when we almost gave it away. I’m proud of the special teams. They took the challenge to not have the kind of game we had a year ago.”
“The offensive line is getting there. They’ve blocked extremely well the last two games. The backs almost always had some sort of crease to start their runs. When you give them space and they can make a move on a safety, they can make a long run. The blocking and the perimeter blocking have been good, and we’ve got backs who are pretty darn good too.”
“We don’t want to have an offense centered around just one guy. We want to spread it out so that defensively there’s not just one guy to shut down when it comes to throwing and catching. When Murray makes full-field reads, he can hit four or five guys. … Murray prepares so well. Rarely do we run a bad play. He’s mature enough and capable enough and he studies the game enough to make the decisions he makes.”
Junior Quarterback Aaron Murray
On the game…
“It’s always a good feeling to put the hat and headset on at the end of the game. We did a great job tonight on offense, defense and special teams. I think it’s the first game all year that every part of our football team has played a complete 60 minutes.”
On the offensive line…
“The line is doing a great job, They only allowed one sack, and it wasn’t their fault. I went back to the huddle and told them that it was on me…I’ll be buying them ice cream tomorrow night I guess! The receivers are also doing a great job finding space and making plays and the running backs are finding the holes. We’re clicking.”
Senior Receiver Marlon Brown
On the difference this year than in years past…
“I’m healthy for one. I think I’m faster too which is helping me with everything else. I’m finding ways to get open and Murray is finding me.”
On the win…
“It was just a great game tonight. Murray was throwing perfect balls and I was catching them and trying to make plays.”
Junior Linebacker Jarvis Jones
On the game…
“We wanted to make sure that we closed out the game strong. Coach Grantham called a great game. On the field, we communicated and executed well and had fun. It’s a great feeling.”
“I thought that we played well on all three sides of the ball and when we do that I think people can see how good we can be. If we keep preparing, executing and having fun, we’re going to continue to win games.”
Senior Cornerback Sanders Commings
On the Georgia team…
“We’ve played well the last couple of games, but we still have to make some improvements to get better. When we can fix those we’re going to be even better.”
Senior Nose Guard John Jenkins
On the Georgia team…
“We just have to keep playing week in and week out. It was a great game though. Our special teams was great tonight and because of that the rest of the team really played a good game.”
Vanderbilt Head Coach James Franklin
Opening Statement…
“I have to give credit to Georgia. They are a very good football team and are ranked in the top-5 in the nation for a reason. I think the difference in the game was played up front, especially with their offensive line. They did a really good job of running the ball with power and forced us to load the box, which opened up the passing game on the outside. I didn’t feel like we played with the confidence that we normally play with on
the outside.”
On Vanderbilt’s play…
“We moved the ball and part of the problem was us. We jumped off-sides early in the game. We put ourselves behind with those penalties. I don’t think we handled the noise and the crowd as well as we could have. I thought Jordan Rodgers looked as good throwing the ball as he has since I have been here. As I watched him play, he was decisive, confident and the ball was coming out accurately consistently. Zac Stacy
ran the ball well tonight, the problem was that the game got out of hand. We mixed in the run to keep Georgia honest, but we felt like we had to throw the ball. We have to continue to get better and find the big plays that we came up with last year.”
On starting Jordan Rodgers…
“I didn’t feel like we have had anyone who has really taken hold of the quarterback position. We are treating this position like we do some of the other positions. We are going to look at who practices well throughout the week and let them play on Saturday until someone grabs hold of the position.”
Junior Safety Kenny Ladler
“We didn’t stop the run tonight, and if you don’t stop the run, you let the whole offense open up. That’s what happened. Georgia ran the ball extremely well tonight.”
Junior Linebacker Chase Garnham
“Georgia has two very talented backs. They had a lot of help up front, and both are hard to tackle so it was a tough assignment. They ran the ball and passed it well on us. Their offensive line pushed us around a lot. We basically didn’t do our job tonight and we’ve got to get together.”
Redshirt Sophomore Wide Receiver Chris Boyd
“We hurt ourselves with penalties tonight. We were moving the ball well, but set ourselves back and put ourselves in a big hole. We’re a much better team than how we played tonight, and we’re just going to go back to the drawing board.”
Senior Running Back Zac Stacy
“You can’t have a lot of penalties in a hostile environment like Georgia. We have to fix the mental errors because when we execute, we’re a pretty good football team.”