Top 25: No. 7 Georgia 56, Florida Atlantic 20

Top 25 football • Georgia gained 713 yards on offense.

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

ATHENS, Ga. • Aaron Murray passed for a career-best 342 yards and two touchdowns and scored twice with short runs to help No. 7 Georgia bounce back from another slow start to blow out Florida Atlantic 56-20 on Saturday night.

Georgia (3-0), which was playing without Jarvis Jones and two other defensive starters, struggled in the first half to slow a Florida Atlantic team that scored a single touchdown against lower-division Wagner. The 44-point underdog Owls kept converting third downs and found themselves tied at 14-14 early in the second quarter.

But the Bulldogs simply had too many weapons for Florida Atlantic (1-2). They piled up a school-record 713 yards. Murray completed 14 of 19 passes, including a 67-yard touchdown to Michael Bennett and a 36-yarder to Arthur Lynch. Murray scored on a pair of 1-yard sneaks.

The junior eclipsed his previous high passing game, a 326-yard effort against Vanderbilt last season. He now has 67 touchdown passes in his career, pulling even with Eric Zeier for second place in the school rankings and only five behind the leader, David Greene.

Both of Georgia's freshmen running backs topped 100 yards on the ground. Todd Gurley ran for 111 yards, including a 38-yard touchdown early in the third quarter that finally turned the game into the expected rout. Keith Marshall had 104 yards and a TD.

Florida Atlantic matched Georgia score for score in the early going.

Damian Fortner broke off a 43-yard touchdown run, and Nexon Dorvilus hauled in a 2-yard scoring pass from Graham Wilbert to tie the game for the final time early in the second period.

It was all Georgia from there. —