Aaron Murray became one of the best quarterbacks in Georgia history, but before then, the Tampa, Florida native had an interesting recruitment, including heavy interest from the Florida Gators.

Murray explained how the offensive coordinators played a significant factor in his college choice.

“I think the biggest reason why I didn’t commit to Florida was because Dan Mullen was on his way out,” Murray said on the latest episode of The Saturday Down South Podcast. “I think a lot of people knew at that time that Dan was ready to take that next step and be a head coach somewhere. It wasn’t official yet, but that was kind of the rumblings. For a quarterback, the guy I was gonna work more with, it was not the head coach. It wasn’t gonna be (Mark) Richt, it wasn’t gonna be (Urban) Meyer. It was gonna be Dan Mullen or Mike Bobo.

“I was like, I don’t wanna commit to someone who might end up leaving, or maybe a new OC comes in and changes up the offense a little bit or puts his own twists on it. That’s just not my thing. Or maybe the new offensive coordinator doesn’t like me and he has somebody else that he’s gonna bring in that’s gonna be the starting quarterback.”

Murray added that the offensive scheme of playing in a pro-style offense that just paved the way for Matthew Stafford also stood out compared to Florida’s more college-focused spread offense. On top of that, it didn’t help Florida’s case that it was already a fully stocked room of quarterbacks in Gainesville compared to a more open situation at Georgia.

“Stafford was leaving, you had Joe Cox, Logan Gray and Bobo told me, ‘We’re gonna bring in 2 quarterbacks in your class,’ which was great,” Murray said. “Florida had Tim Tebow, John Brantley and Cam Newton. You walk into that room and you’re like, ‘Damn, this is a really impressive quarterback room.’ Obviously Cam is a giant human being and Dan Mullen is on his way out, so a lot of that obviously played into my decision to end up going to Georgia over Florida.”