QUITE THE CATCHWhere junior A.J. Green stands in terms of Georgia’s receiving records:CAREER YARDS1. Terrence Edwards 3,0932. Fred Gibson 2,8843. A.J. Green 2,542CAREER SCORES1. Terrence Edwards 302. A.J. Green 233. Fred Gibson 20
As he looks back on 2010, and there is a lot in which to reflect, Georgia receiver A.J. Green believes the good outweighed the bad.
Green entered his junior year as a prominent candidate for the Biletnikoff Award, but the NCAA suspended him in early September for four games for selling his 2009 Independence Bowl jersey for $1,000. He was not eligible until October, but the 6-foot-4, 212-pounder returned more dazzling than ever in helping the Bulldogs recover from a dreadful start to reach Friday afternoon’s Liberty Bowl with a 6-6 record.
“God puts you through things to see how you’re going to respond,” Green said Tuesday by phone from Memphis. “From day one, I had never had any adversity in my whole life. Coming into my junior year is when the adversity hit, and I felt like I handled it pretty well.
“I responded really well and had a pretty good year. This has taught me that football can be gone in a blink of an eye, because I could have lost my whole season.”
Despite the four-game absence, Green leads the Bulldogs with 771 receiving yards and has a career-best nine touchdowns. His average of 96.4 yards per game also is a career-best.
Green torched Auburn for 164 yards and two touchdowns on nine catches, but his lasting reception will be his first touchdown of the year, a leaping 3-yard, left-handed snag at Colorado.
“That was an unbelievable catch,” quarterback Aaron Murray said. “To be able to shed a defender the way he did and catch it not only with one hand but his left hand, so it wasn’t even his dominant hand.”
Said Green: “That’s definitely the best catch I’ve ever had in my whole football career. I just went up there not knowing what would happen until I tried.”
Murray said the only comparable highlight he saw this year occurred in the Oklahoma-Oklahoma State game, when Cowboys cornerback Brodrick Brown tipped the ball to linebacker Shaun Lewis as Brown was sailing out of bounds. Green’s previous personal highlight of choice was blocking an Arizona State field goal in 2009, which enabled the Bulldogs to remain tied 17-17 in a game they won 20-17.
“He’s made some pretty impressive catches in practice, too,” senior receiver Kris Durham said. “We were warming up one time, and he caught one behind his back. That was probably the most impressive catch I’ve ever seen. It was before the Colorado game, too. He’ll catch punts behind his back. It’s not like he’s trying to show off. It’s just something that he can do.”
The Liberty Bowl against Central Florida is expected to be Green’s college finale, though he maintains he has not made his decision regarding the NFL. He has played 31 games for the Bulldogs, or just two-and-a-half seasons in this era of 12-game schedules.
When Green was suspended, Georgia averaged 24.3 points and 352.3 yards per game. Since his return, the Bulldogs have averaged 39.3 points and 414.5 yards and have scored 30 or more points a program-record seven consecutive times.
“We averaged a lot more points with him than without him, that’s for sure,” coach Mark Richt said. “I think everybody got better as we went along, but A.J. was definitely a big part of that jump in point production.”
The soft-spoken Green admits his year has been busier than he could have imagined. He also admits there could be a lot of things going through his mind when he steps out on the field against UCF.
“I’m just going to go out there and play the game and try not to think about any of it,” he said.
Bring on the Buckeyes
Georgia athletic director Greg McGarity announced Tuesday that there is a “memorandum of understanding” for the Bulldogs to play Ohio State during the 2020-21 seasons. The games likely will occur within the first two weeks of those seasons, and it has not been determined which year Athens will play host.
The Bulldogs and Buckeyes have met once before, with Georgia winning 21-14 in the Citrus Bowl (now the Capital One) to cap a 10-2 season in 1992.
In addition to playing Georgia Tech at the end of each year, Georgia now has notable out-of-conference games lined up with Boise State (2011), Clemson (2013-14) and Ohio State. The Bulldogs will have seven home games in 2012 and in the 2014-19 seasons.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.