Cox Closes in on Record Book

Strange-but-true fact of the day...

Did you know Joe Cox needs just three touchdown passes against Texas A&M to match the all-time record for TD throws in a season at Georgia?

Cox's 22 TD passes already ties David Greene for fifth on the single-season list, and it's certainly not out of the realm of possibility for him to set a new mark. The Aggies were dead last in pass defense in the Big 12 and ranked 111th nationally this year. Overall, they allowed 20 touchdown passes against them, including five to Oklahoma's Landry Jones and four apiece to Texas' Colt McCoy and Arkansas' Ryan Mallett.

In fact, while Cox's INTs have been a problem this year, he has had plenty of highlights, too. He needs just 14 passing yards to pass Mike Bobo's 1996 effort for 10th most in a season in Georgia history, and a 343-yard effort would move him all the way up to sixth on that list. He needs just five completions for the 10th-best season in that regard, and he's not out of reach of matching Matthew Stafford's 2007 effort of 194 completions for eighth all time. And Cox's 2,426 yards passing already ranks fifth in school history for a single season by a senior. Three-hundred-twenty-five more yards would move him up to second on that list.

"It'd be pretty cool, but really the only thing we were worried about was how our team finished up," Cox said. "We know we didn't have the season we wanted to. We still have a chance to play one more time and finish up strong, and that's really what I'm worried about. But it is crazy that I'm that close. It goes to show you that we had a lot of big plays this year, we had a lot of games where we did some really good things, we just had some games where we had too many mistakes that outweighed our good things we did."

Of course, the other thing it shows, in my humble opinion, is that a bit too much of the responsibility for the offense fell onto Cox's shoulders this season. His 303 passing attempts rank 12th already in Georgia history, and he's just seven behind the number D.J. Shockley had to throw in 2005. If Monday's game turns into the shootout many are expecting, Cox could theoretically pass Stafford's 348 attempts in 2007, too.

Say what you will about Cox's performance, but I don't think anyone was expecting to see him chuck the ball around the field quite that often this season, and it certainly wasn't the offensive formula that best highlighted his strengths.