Thursday, February 9, 2012

A case for Faton Bauta

It is so easy to fall in love with the hot young recruit that steps on campus, but every once in a while, it makes sense to go head over heels. The University of Georgia has a returning redshirt junior quarterback in Aaron Murray, who broke school records one year ago and seems poised to have most of the passing records by the time he leaves Athens in the spring of 2014. With Hutson Mason taking a redshirt season this year, though, perhaps Dwyer (Fla.) High School product Faton Bauta should get a look in a few packages this year. The future of the position sits squarely in the lap of redshirt freshman Christian LeMay, but Bauta has been on campus for a few weeks now and apparently has spent most of that time at the football complex. According to sources close to Georgia, Bauta is either watching film, studying the playbook, lifting weights or throwing to receivers non-stop. LeMay will be the backup to Murray this year, and he should be with an extra year on Bauta, but don’t be shocked to see Mike Bobo come up with a special package for Bauta.

Rusty Mansell of 247Sports compared Bauta to Tebow and with good reason. Bauta is 6-foot-3, 220 pounds, who was a fullback/linebacker until he moved to quarterback his senior season. He could be called on for quarterback draws or sneaks near the goal line much the way Tebow was used his true freshman season at Florida. He even has shown a better arm the Tebow at this point in his career.

No one in the world expects Bauta to steal a start from Murray, and if Murray were to go down with an injury, odds are LeMay would come in and assume the starter’s role. But don’t be shocked to see Bauta in there a bunch this upcoming season. As much as Georgia fans hated Tebow out there, had he donned the red and black, fans would have been in love. Perhaps this is the universe throwing Georgia a bone in the form of “Tebow Jr.”

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