I know I’m going to have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach the first time I see Fedora call that (*@^#)%@# bubble screen.
I only hope that we see someone (Reshad Jones, maybe?) come flying up from the secondary and level the receiver immediately after the catch. (Second choice would be having a corner read the play and step into the flat and intercept Reid.)
Somebody needs to pay. We deserve it.
Filed under Georgia Football
There weren’t a lot of highlights in last night’s SEC opener, but this surely qualifies:
Keep in mind, that’s a receiver hitting a safety… whew.
Filed under SEC Football
First, some (not so seemingly) random factoids.
It’s tempting to look at the game tomorrow and focus on Bowman, Stafford and the green Georgia secondary and predict a shootout, but I think that for the Dawgs to win, they’ve got to be successful at running the ball and controlling the Cowboy running game. Running the ball lets them keep the OSU offense off the field and takes pressure off of the young, untested offensive line. Limiting the OSU running attack forces Reid to pass to a group of wide receivers that, outside of Bowman, are inexperienced.
I think Richt wants to do every thing he can to control the pace of the game. The over/under on the game is somewhere around 55-56. Barring something crazy happening (like Georgia going +6 in TO margin), I think there won’t be more than 45 points scored combined.
What the factoids tell me is that (1) Richt knows how to control a regular season game with an OOC opponent; (2) OSU hasn’t shown the ability to win this kind of a game in a very long time; (3) Martinez knows how to nullify a big threat at wideout; and (4) Georgia’s inexperience at offensive line may not be quite as big an issue in this game as we fear (although Bobo expects it to be tested with a good deal of zone blitz). I lean towards Richt getting his way.
ESPN’s Bruce Feldman describes Oklahoma State as a more talented Kentucky, which sounds about right. And, before you say “Georgia lost to UK last year!”, remember that the Daws outgained the ‘Cats in that game. The loss resulted from Georgia being -1 in TO margin (including a pick of a spectacularly bad throw by Stafford inside the Georgia 5) and Andy Bailey missing two FGs. If Coutu had played and Stafford had been just a little more mature, you’re looking at a final score of 26-17, Georgia.
And that’s about where I see things coming out tomorrow.
Filed under Georgia Football
David Ching has a post up at his blog analyzing Oklahoma State’s offensive performance from 2006. After sifting through it, I’m not sure I’m on board with all of the conclusions he draws from the data.
Here’s what he takes from the info:
* Much has been made of OSU’s averaging 200 rushing and 200 passing per game last year, but they actually only accomplished that three times — versus Nebraska, Division I-AA bottom feeder Missouri State and an Alabama team playing with a lame duck coach.
* So with all of THAT said, here’s an important distinction Bryan made in his analysis:
*** Against top 50 defenses, Oklahoma State averaged 175 rushing yards and 177 passing yards, good for a total of 352 total yards per game.
*** Against defenses ranked 50th or worse, OSU averaged 236 rushing, 223 passing and 459 total.
*** That’s a pretty substantial difference. How big of a difference? Louisiana-Monroe averaged 350 yards per game last year. West Virginia averaged 460.
As to the first point, so what? I don’t think a competent offensive coordinator (which Fedora is) goes into every game thinking he has to get 200/200 rushing/passing yards to have a successful game plan. You take what a defense gives you. Over the course of a season, that kind of balance on average would seem to be a good indication that you’ve got a clue about what you’re doing. If it wasn’t that big a deal, more than two teams (which finished #2 and #7 in scoring, BTW) would have accomplished that.
Now as to the rest of that, doesn’t it seem pretty intuitive that an offense would do better against weaker defenses than it would against the better performing ones? The more relevant data would be to show whether OSU’s offense did better against the defenses it played than did other opponents. (Matt’s numbers would suggest that to be the case, at least for OSU’s conference games.)
Taking a look at the other side of the coin, I ran a similar analysis on Georgia’s 2006 defense. Here’s the breakdown, leaving out 1-AA WKU:
Team/Rush yds/Pass yds/Total/NCAA offense rank
Against top 50 offenses, Georgia’s defense allowed 113.25 rushing ypg, 213.75 passing ypg and 327 total ypg. Against the rest, the figures were 110.88 rushing ypg, 121.13 passing ypg and 232 total ypg. That pretty much parallels the results of Ching’s data. (Although perhaps it’s noteworthy that OSU’s yardage numbers change almost equally on passing and rushing, while Georgia’s differ almost completely in passing alone.)
And for what it’s worth, OSU over the course of the season faced a defense ranked on average as the 52.25 best in D-1. Georgia faced on average the 67.58 best offense in D-1.
That all being said, I do think Ching is on more solid ground when he posts
Let’s keep in mind here that Georgia loses a lot of key defensive players this season. Let’s also keep in mind that, after finishing 49th in total defense in Mark Richt’s first season in Athens, the Bulldogs have finished no worse than 18th in any season since. They were eighth last year, one of three times they’ve been eighth or better in Richt’s six seasons. I’d be shocked if they weren’t a top-20 total defense again this year, despite the youth.
I would be too. The question is, though, will they play like a top 20 defense tomorrow?
Filed under Georgia Football, Stats Geek!, The Blogosphere
Overall, no major surprises, just a few smaller ones.
Mississippi State
LSU
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UPDATE: Yrrch. Methinks the Good Ship Croom is starting to take on water at an alarming rate.
(h/t Dawg Sports)
Filed under SEC Football
Get The Picture 