Playoffs, guaranteed to cure what ails you. Whatever that may be.

Three weeks ago, I’m getting hammered by commenters here and elsewhere about the Apocalypse about to visit college football this season: omigawd, there are going to be three… no, four… no, five… no, six! undefeated BCS conference teams this year… we’ve got to have a playoff, stat!

Crazy talk, man.

But here we are, on the other side of some upsets that cleared out a lot of the underbrush in the rankings and I knew the other shoe was about to drop. And so it has:

… we need a playoff, the only way to yank a legitimate champion from another chaotic college football season.

Got it? It’s so easy, when you think about it.

If the season is predictable, we need a playoff. If the college season is chaotic, we need a playoff. If too many college powers go undefeated, we need a playoff. If not enough college powers go undefeated, we need a playoff.

For their proponents, playoffs are to college football as the Surge is to the Iraq War. No matter what, they work.

(h/t The Wizard of Odds)

The Power of the Off Week

Another meme. Another myth.

Here’s Tennessee’s record in games following off weeks from 2002-2006:

• 2006 – UT beats ‘Bama, 16-13, at home
• 2005 – UT loses to ‘Bama, 6-3, on the road
• 2004 – UT beats Florida, 30-28, at home; UT beats Vandy 38-33, on the road
• 2003 – UT beats Florida 24-10, on the road
• 2002 – UT loses to Florida, 30-13, at home; UT loses to ‘Bama, 34-14, on the road

That’s a 4-3 record over that time, hardly the stuff that legends are made of. Georgia lost Saturday on its own merits, thank you very much.

Those with an abiding faith in the Power of the Off Week are about to see it seriously tested in Jacksonville in three weeks.

Dawg stat watch: Good grief.

Don’t laugh about this post – I already did that when I thought about writing it. Needless to say, this is the last one of these I’ll run for the season.

If you’ve been following things at this blog, I’ve been tracking seven SEC statistical categories that have in common that Georgia excelled in each of them in ‘02, ‘03 and ‘05, the three years that the Dawgs have made it to Atlanta under Richt (you can read the background on my analysis here). They are

1. Hold opponents under 17 points per game.
2. Finish at least +8 in turnover margin.
3. Average better than 380 yards per game on offense.
4. Finish in the top five in total defensive yardage.
5. Finish in the top three in first downs.
6. Finish no worse than third in passing yardage.
7. Finish no worse than third in sacks.

After the Tennessee blowout, here’s where the Dawgs rank in each category in the SEC:

1. Points allowed per game: 20.2
2. Turnover margin: -1
3. Total offense per game: 361.8 yards
4. Total defense per game: 321.2 yards, 5th in the conference
5. First downs: 120, 6th in the conference
6. Passing yardage per game: 201.8, 8th in the conference
7. Sacks: 9, 8th in the conference

You know, there are two schools of thought with regard to statistics. One is the Benjamin Disraeli, Mark Twain group – “lies, damned lies and statistics”.

The other is the Charlie Brown position. There’s a Peanuts strip where Lucy is reciting to Charlie all of the statistics their baseball team compiled during another season of futility to which a fed up Charlie Brown finally turns to Lucy and says, “Tell your statistics to shut up.”

I’m definitely feeling Charlie Brown today.

“I don’t understand this.”

If you haven’t heard the call (on the Versus Network, whatever that is) of the winning TD in the Stanford-USC game, it’s one helluva botched job.

Talk about clueless – first one announcer gets the team that scored wrong (he did have a 50/50 shot on that one) and then his sidekick mistakenly says that Harbaugh decided to go for the tie by kicking the extra point. One little missing detail: Stanford had already tied the game with the touchdown.

This is definitely Hall of Fame material:

At least he didn’t mention Britney.

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UPDATE: By the way, it looks like USC QB John David Booty took the loss especially hard. No wonder so many want to play in LA.

(h/t The Wizard of Odds)

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UPDATE #2: Maybe Les Miles was right all along.

Try, try again.

One of the little stories many of us Dawg fans like to tell ourselves for consolation after a painful loss is that the winning team spent extra time and effort gameplanning for Georgia.  We heard plenty of that after the South Carolina result – Spurrier was installing his gameplan against Georgia during the summer, according to some – and that same meme is starting to crop up on Dawg message boards after the Tennessee fiasco.

Well, after you read this paragraph from Ching’s article in the Ledger-Enquirer today, ask yourself why any coach has to plan anything special for Georgia:

Although Georgia’s coaches said the Volunteers didn’t do anything they hadn’t previously seen on film, the Bulldogs were continuously either out of position or unable to make the tackle when they were. Even the reverse pass 56-yard touchdown from Lucas Taylor to tailback LaMarcus Coker ­ a play where no Bulldog was within 20 yards of the wide-open Coker ­ was old. The Vols used the same play and same two players for a 48-yard score last season against Florida.