Following their 63-17 loss to Georgia this evening, Murray State head coach Mitch Stewart and at least a few Racer players seemed mostly encouraged, despite the 46-point margin which separated them and the No. 3 Bulldogs.
“Our guys don’t want any more moral victories, but I’m really pleased with and encouraged with the effort we played with,” said Stewart, whose overall record as Murray State's head coach dropped to 16-30. “Our [pregame] conversations with the [players] were just, ‘Hey, let’s win the third quarter. Let’s win the fourth quarter.’ If you look back on it, we broke even in the first, and then won the third quarter.”
Indeed, Georgia and Murray State were surprisingly knotted at 7-7 at the end of the opening quarter—and the Racers actually outscored the Bulldogs in the third quarter, 10-7.
Murray State tied the score midway through the first stanza when sophomore quarterback Preston Rice connected with junior receiver DaQuon Green for a 60-yard touchdown, instantly silencing the Sanford Stadium crowd. Green, a former four-star signee with Florida who caught one pass for the Gators last season before deciding to transfer, finished the game with five receptions for 101 yards.
“[The touchdown] was just a little RPO and I was looking for [Green], hoping he would get open,” said Rice, who completed 20 of 25 passes for 216 yards, including the 60-yard touchdown, and was not intercepted. “He did a great route and got separation from the [defender], and he does what he does—and makes a play and scores out of it.”
One-fourth of the way into the ballgame, with an FCS program tied with the third-ranked team in the nation, one could certainly imagine that Murray State’s sideline was rather enthusiastic.
“We were all pumping each other up like, ‘Come on! We can hang with these guys. They’re no different than us,’” said senior safety T.J. Warren, a native of Conyers, Ga., and Missouri transfer. “They got that [No. 3] ranking off of the way they work. But, at the end of the day, they put their pads on just like us, so we really felt like we were in the game.”
Warren, who tallied five tackles, played in front of a few friends and family members, including his mother.
The Bulldogs responded to Murray State’s long touchdown pass by scoring 35 consecutive points. However, the Racers cut their deficit to three touchdowns midway through the third quarter, when senior cornerback Nigel Walton stepped in front of a pass thrown by backup quarterback Stetson Bennett and returned it 35 yards for a score—the first interception returned for a touchdown allowed by Georgia since 2016.
“As soon as [Georgia] hiked the ball, I read [Bennett’s] eyes. I saw he was staring at my man, and I saw my man run a hitch out of the corner of my eye,” said Walton, who also recovered a Georgia fumble, along with making three tackles. “As soon as he threw it, I just broke and was able to jump in front of it and take it to the house.”
Murray State tacked on a field goal late in the third quarter before being shut out, 14-0, the rest of the way. Still, according to Coach Stewart and his players, although tonight was no moral victory for them, it was a positive defeat—if there is such a thing.
“There’s a lot of positives, especially when you come into a game like this with an atmosphere like this,” Stewart said. “The biggest thing you want to do is make sure you leave with more positives than negatives. I believe we’ve got a ton more positives coming out of this game.”
