

ATHENS, Ga. – Aaron Murray was playing cornhole against his sister a while back, and the game was getting competitive.



That’s not surprising, because everything gets competitive in a family where Aaron plays quarterback at Georgia, big brother Josh used to play at Georgia and little sister Stephanie was a flag-football star in high school. But when the cornhole game was down to the final beanbag tosses, Stephanie broke out the sharp verbal instruments.

“Five seconds to go against Alabama, Aaron,” she said. “Make the shot.”

Et tu, little sis?

“I looked at her and said, ‘Really? You’re going to do that to me?’ “ Aaron recalled with a laugh.

Five seconds.

Five yards.

That tiny amount of time and small slice of real estate haunt and taunt Aaron Murray. And they have driven him for the past seven months, in search of redemption and completion.

“You come up five yards short,” Murray said, “it’ll give you nightmares.”

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It’ll do more than that. The five yards and five seconds that separated Georgia from beating Alabama in a classic Southeastern Conference title game last year, and thus playing for a national title, helped turn Murray away from the NFL draft and back to college for a final season in the red and black.

“That’s the main reason [Murray came back for a fifth year at Georgia],” he said. “To get one more chance to be first. To play for the SEC championship again, and hopefully have a chance to play for the national championship after that.”

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Murray has those five seconds and five yards burned into his consciousness. But for those who may not remember, they went like this: trailing 32-28, the Bulldogs were launching an improbable, last-minute drive through the heart of the Alabama defense. Murray completed three straight passes to the Crimson Tide 8-yard line, and hustled his team to the line of scrimmage to squeeze off another snap.

Spiking the ball might have been the better move, in order to regroup, though Murray disagrees.

“We had a great play called,” he said.

The call was a back-shoulder fade to receiver Malcolm Mitchell in the end zone – a play Murray had executed well all year. But when he set to throw, Alabama linebacker C.J. Mosley leaped and got a fingertip or two on the pass.

Instead of spiraling to Mitchell, it wobbled just a few yards to Chris Conley, who instinctively reacted by catching it as he was falling down at the Alabama 5. That was the ballgame. Murray hustled Georgia to the line in a desperate attempt to spike and get another play, but the clock ran out.

Alabama staggered out of the Georgia Dome and into the BCS championship game, where it destroyed Notre Dame to win yet another national title. Georgia knew that if not for those five yards and five seconds, it could have been the team trampling the overmatched Fighting Irish.

Murray watched the game the next day, then viewed it once with position coach Mike Bobo. After that he put it away for months, before watching it again twice this summer as part of his 2012 season review and ’13 preparation.

Aside from the pain in his gut, the takeaway for the Georgia QB was an appreciation of being in a classic game against a classy opponent.

“Aside from the one play where I got my head blown off [on a hit by Alabama’s Quinton Dial that should have drawn a flag], they were probably the most respectful team we played all year,” Murray said. “I guess that’s a reflection of their coaching.

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