Dinich’s waters run deep.

I know you can’t expect much in less than two minutes of analyzing seven games, but does the only reason Heather Dinich can come up with as to why she believes Georgia Tech wins in Athens – “Georgia Tech has Joshua Nesbitt while the Bulldogs are breaking in a new starter…” – have to be that shallow?

I’m not saying the Jackets can’t win the game, but… that’s it?  Quarterback?

First off, barring injury, that’ll be Aaron Murray’s twelfth start of the season.  By then, while he may not be completing passes at a 65% clip (of course, neither will Nesbitt), he’ll at least have gotten significant experience playing against several defenses likely to be better than Tech’s.  He won’t be green and he won’t be playing in front of a hostile crowd.

But more importantly, Joe Cox won in Atlanta last year with this stat line:  8-14, 76 yards, 1 TD, 0 INT.  If that’s all it takes to win, Dinich might want to look in another direction to justify her gut feeling about the game.

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Addition by subtraction

I get Tim Tucker’s point about Georgia’s secondary this season…

Outlook: Up in the air. There’s a lot of talent — albeit largely unproven at the collegiate level other than Boykin — and players are genuinely excited about Lakatos’ vision of an aggressive, physical secondary that stresses press coverage and interceptions. As Cuff said during the spring: “Coach Lakatos, he wants the ball.”

… but how much worse could it be than last year?

Georgia allowed 25 touchdown passes (the most in the SEC) and intercepted only 10 passes (the second fewest in the SEC) last season.

Georgia lost a fifth-round NFL draft pick, two UFAs (one of whom Tucker notes has already been cut by the team he signed with)… and Willie Martinez.  No offense to the parties involved, but that hardly seems insurmountable.

In the land of defending the spread option, the I-formation is king.

This is a recurring theme at GTP, but Baylor coach and spread guru Art Briles makes an observation about college football offensive schemes that’s worth noting, Georgia fans:

The spread really took off in the college game early in the 2000s. Offenses enjoyed a lot of success for several seasons, but last year, it seemed like defenses found a way to at least slow down the spread. Do you think the spread is here to stay in college football, or will it be like the wishbone or West Coast offenses that were en vogue for a while before fading away?

I definitely think it will continue to change, but I also think it’s here to stay. I think the game has become a lot faster from the standpoint of putting people in space and letting them make plays. I don’t think that we’ll consistently see people lining up with a full house backfield, handing the ball to a guy who’s running downfield. I think that part of the game is definitely valuable. You can have some advantages doing that today, because people don’t recruit defensively to stop teams that pound the ball at you. [Emphasis added.] But I don’t think the spread offenses are going anywhere for a while.

I’m looking forward to seeing what a healthy offensive line along with a deep backfield can do with some of the smaller/lighter defensive fronts the Dawgs will see this season.