I’m trying to wrap my brain around The Sporting News‘ 2007 preseason prediction for Georgia and am having a helluva time making everything add up.
Let’s see… TSN predicts that Georgia will lose in upsets to Oklahoma State, Vanderbilt and Georgia Tech – but ranks the Dawgs 14th in the country and has them going to a New Year’s Day bowl game (Capital One) to face Penn State.
I’m not sure that computes.
First, I can’t imagine that the Capital One would take any team with four regular season losses, so I have to assume that TSN expects Georgia to win its remaining games to finish 9-3.
Except that would mean going 7-0 against the rest of the SEC.
Including Florida, Tennessee and South Carolina.
Which would mean that Georgia would hold the tiebreaker against the three if any of them finished 7-1. And only one of them could, since all three would have losses to Georgia.
So doesn’t that add up to Georgia winning the SEC East and playing (but losing) in the SECCG? Would the Cap One take a 9-4 Georgia team?
And how would you feel if Georgia lost to Vandy for the second year in a row (it’s been 50 years since that happened) and Georgia Tech, but beat Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina, Auburn and Alabama in the same season? Has the latter ever been done before?
By the way, TSN ranks Florida #5. Weird.
What am I missing here?
Get The Picture 
You ain’t missin’ nothin’. TSN is a rag – and the analysis was obviously written by a ferret… or a small brown otter… or some other small brained, but long and thin creature.
I did the same math in my head as I read the AJC article – and you are correct, it doesn’t add up.
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Georgia hasn’t lost to Vanderbilt in consecutive years since losing three straight from 1956-’58.
I can’t see them beating us again. 10-2, 11-1 is about where I expect to us finish. Tough games: Auburn, Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, USC. We will probably drop two of those at most.
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As talented as Georgia’s going to be this year, I would have to think that the revenge factor alone would be enough to get us a win over Vandy. I may end up eating my words here, but there are going to be some very angry Dawgs headed up to Nashville this year.
My biggest worries on the schedule are Florida (obviously) and Auburn (since we hardly ever beat them at home). UGA-GT is going to be a track meet. My guess is that TSN picked Georgia Tech in that one because they’re not going to have Reggie Ball fouling things up for them this time around.
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“My guess is that TSN picked Georgia Tech in that one because they’re not going to have Reggie Ball fouling things up for them this time around.”
True, but Calvin’s gone, too. It will be interesting to see which departure has the greater impact. Don’t you get the feeling that Tech’s season is going to play out like some perverse experiment testing the theory of “addition by subtraction”?
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Initially I thought the same thing when I read the AJC article, but there is another explanation. I haven’t read the Sporting News article, but it’s possible that the AJC incorrectly described the “Calendar of Upsets”: as in the TSN “Calendar of Upsets” really only says that those games are “watch out, there might be an upset here” rather than outright predictions of a defeat.
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Without seeing the magazine, I suspect that either you’re correct, or that Paul’s right in that TSN could use a competent editor.
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Just wondering if you have seen the article in its entirety. Some form of context might help me wrap my confused noggin around this one. Otherwise, I am forced to believe they sat around and flung their feces at names on the wall to decide who was victorious in what game. LD I would hope that you are right. The ol’ AJC loves to jump at the opportunity to put down our Dawgs, and the Bumblebees need some form of ammo to make themselves feel better. For instance, their top headline today online was about a no-name in-state WR who committed to Tech, and a Miami LB who was interested in GT, when you actually read the article, he seems more interested in the Dawgs. hmmm… I would be too…
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LD, it looks like your speculation was correct: The intro to the “Calendar of Upsets” article says “Here are a season’s worth of upsets . . . that, if they happeb, will turn stomachs . . . ”
That “if they happen” seems to indicate that they’re picking these out as possible upset opportunities and not upsets they are actually predicting will happen. Some of the other “upsets” on the calendar include Mississippi State over Tennessee, Michigan State over Michigan, and Illinois over Penn State, so . . . take the whole thing with a very big grain of salt.
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“Here are a season’s worth of upsets . . . that, if they happen, will turn stomachs . . . ”
Well, duh, why do they think they’re called “upsets”? How much is TSN charging for insight like that? Whatever it is, it’s too much.
I’m not sure who the bigger idiots are here – the staff at TSN or the AJ-C…
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