The Stafford Theory

Would Georgia be a better team had Matthew Stafford chosen to complete his degree and take one more year of being the big fish in the Georgia locker room. Many, especially in Athens, felt that Stafford should have stayed, enjoyed one more year partying, earned a complete degree and given himself a shot at the SEC championship. The decision he did make is hardly unknown. There are however two questions that his choice has risen for me having seen him as an NFL starter and Georgia playing a Matthew Stafford-less offence; how much did the University of Georgia mean to Matthew Stafford? And how much did Matthew Stafford really mean to UGA?
After David Greene and then D.J Shockley there was already a Georgia QB dynasty blossoming and Matthew Stafford appeared to be the next one to lead the Dawgs to at least the SEC if not a national championship. Unfortunately for UGA and Matthew he arrived at the same time as Urban Meyer, Tim Tebow and the Florida Gators, but did this affect the way Stafford played for the Bulldogs? No simply. He lead his team to a win in Jacksonville but dropped conference games to South Carolina and Tennessee and your not going to win an SEC championship with 2 conference losses no matter how many times you beat Florida. Then perhaps in his best chance to win both the SEC and BCS in one attempt, starting the year ranked #1 in the country and with the nations best running back to balance his power arm the was supposedly no stopping the Bulldogs, wrong. Stafford, with a little help from his D and O-line, bombed in the two biggest games he would likely play for the university. However a capital one bowl win isn’t bad reward for the most multi-talented team in the country is it. Some Georgia fans, and I will include myself in this, felt Matt owed the university a bit, he owed his team mates and the fans one last shot, even without Moreno it became clear he had a ready made replacement for Mohammed Massaquai, perhaps even better, in A.J Green. Did the university, his friends and fans really mean as much as he said? Having seen Colt McCoy, Tim Tebow and Sam Bradford return to school for their senior years plus the emergance of Jimmy Clausen and Jevan Snead and a plethora of other great quarterbacks in Matthew Stafford could have challenged himself to lead the Bulldogs against a strong field of QB’s on strong teams, he left in a weak draft class for his position, he was chosen as the best of three and does anyone think Josh Freeman is going to do anything on Sundays? It seems to me that Matthew Stafford used the University of Georgia as a stepping stone to personal wealth, it also seems that UGA used Stafford as a stepping stone to collective success.

Has the Georgia offence actually missed Stafford this year yet? Maybe once, in the beating Oklahoma sun when #14 was suffocating under the kind of scrutiny that the former #7 never faced. Matthew Stafford tied the record for touchdown passes in a game (5)in his second to last start with team, Joe Cox matched the same feat in his 4th start. Joe Cox who has sat behind Stafford for 3 years and finally got his chance is leading a young team and actually winning the Dawgs games, he has them at 2-1(2-0 SEC). What those stats don’t actually tell you that he has had to beat South Carolina single handed, throwing for 576 yards combined and 7 TD’s helping the Bulldogs to 93 points across the two games. I’m not saying Cox is a better quarterback than Matthew Stafford, I think he has shown enough potential in his two NFL starts to have belief he can be widely successful, I am just suggesting that maybe for now he is the better one for Georgia. There is every possibility that this season if Joe Cox plays the way he has against SEC teams this year against everyone he may actually improve on Staffords 10-3 record last year, that is a huge claim that Georgia could go the rest of the year losing only 1 game, but if they learn to play defence smartish they could do it and Joe Cox could do something Matthew Stafford never gave himself a chance to do, win the SEC, big claims for a big goal.