Georgia star running back Todd Gurley has been indefinitely suspended during an ongoing NCAA investigation. According to a press release from the school. 

“I’m obviously very disappointed,” said UGA head football coach Mark Richt. “The important thing for our team is to turn all our attention toward preparation for Missouri.”

All of a sudden now, it’s the Hutson Mason show on offense. Depending on how this plays out, and depending on how long this goes for, Georgia is going to have to tinker its gameplan and its attack to move a little bit away from the ground game that relied so heavily on Gurley, and it’ll have to unleash Mason a bit more and get the downfield passing game going. 

It’s also time for the defense to step up and produce at a higher level. The stats are nice, and the D has hardly been a problem, but it struggled against Tennessee and it’s been inconsistent. The Georgia offense has to start taking a few more chances, and it’s going to have to rely, again, on Mason to become more of a leader and more of a playmaker – teams are going to start to gameplan for him now. 

It’ll be running back by committee for a while, with freshman Nick Chubb the next in line to try to get the ball more, and remember, it’s Georgia – there are more running backs. There are always more running backs. 

But there isn’t a Gurley. 

The SEC East is right there for the taking. Florida is struggling, South Carolina keeps losing to everyone but Georgia, Tennessee is in its annual We’re A Year Away mode, Vanderbilt is awful, and Kentucky is still emerging. That’s why this week’s game against Missouri was and is so big, and that’s why it’s so intriguing. And that’s why Georgia got the wrong news about the wrong disaster at the wrong time. 

This also changes up the Heisman picture in a big way. Marcus Mariota all but bowed out last weekend, along with Brett Hundley and Kenny Hill. Dak Prescott and Everett Golson are starting to emerge more and more, but Gurley was the one everyone was really keeping an eye on as the type of player and the type of back who could carry the Bulldogs to a possible playoff spot by himself. There was a chance he was going to grow into the signature player of the college football season, but now that’s all put on hold, at least. 

The season of strange twists and turns just took a massive one. Now we get to see what Georgia can do without the best player in college football.