It’s safe to say that junior day in Gainesville went well for Tampa Plant’s standout quarterback Aaron Murray. Murray visited the campus with his family Sunday and by the time they were on I-75 heading back to Tampa after a great day with the Gator coaching staff, he had a scholarship offer from the University of Florida.
By Jason Pughe
The best part of the junior day was spending time with Florida’s coaching staff, but the visit entailed much, much more.
“It went really well, I got there this morning with my parents, my sister and brother, and my coach,” said Murray, who received an offer from Georgia last week. “I talked to the coaches a little bit and I got to meet some other top guys from around the state. We checked out the facilities and it was a pretty good visit. I had a good time up there.”
Murray ended up arriving 30 minutes early this morning and that enabled him to spend some extra time with Urban Meyer and Dan Mullen.
“I went up to Urban Meyer’s office and sat down with him and Dan Mullen,” Murray said. “We talked for a little while and towards the end of the talk, they said we really like you a lot so we’re going to go ahead and offer you. I’m really excited about the offer. When all the players got there, we all gathered in a big room and they separated us by location and then by position. We spent most of the day in our position groups checking out the locker room and the facilities.”
Most of the players who came to junior day went to the Florida-Vanderbilt basketball game but Murray spent that time talking with the Florida coaches. By the time they finished, the game was almost over.
Despite receiving an offer today, Murray is still wide open.
“I’m still all open right now”, he said. “Florida is a great school, great coaches, great everything. Right now, I’m taking it all in and absorbing all the information. In a month or two from now, I will sit down and narrow it down from here.”
Since the Gators are not taking a quarterback in this class, the quarterback situation is very attractive for 2009. The Florida coaches visited his school this past week and spoke to Murray about the quarterback situation.
“I have gotten a lot of good vibes from them and like their quarterback situation and where I would fit in,” said Murray. “It’s a good situation for me because if I go there and redshirt, I’d be two years behind Brantley and would have at least two years to start. It’s a really good situation if I end up going there, but we are going to look at that in a month or two and focus on what I really want to do.”
Murray has some more visits on the horizon and in the next month or two he will start to figure out what each school has to offer.
“I have a couple of visits coming up like Florida State next weekend, and Georgia and Tennessee want me to come up for their junior days,” he said. “I need to check my schedule and see if I can check out those places. If I can’t, once I narrow down my list I’ll make all the visits I need to make.”