In looking at how the Outback Bowl plays out, I’d like to stay away from the obvious, but I really think today’s game comes down to Georgia avoiding the special teams screw ups and huge turnovers that plagued the Dawgs in their two SEC losses.
As I noted the other day, MSU and Georgia are fairly evenly matched, but I have a feeling that Grantham will do a better job of slowing down what the Spartans like to do than vice versa. If Georgia can avoid giving up the cheap stuff, I like its chances.
Consider this your game day thread.
Get The Picture 
For anybody interested, here’s my SBN preview for the game: http://www.sbnation.com/ncaa-football/2012/1/2/2673170/outback-bowl-2012-michigan-state-georgia-football-preview
And yeah, special teams are the reason the numbers give the edge to MSU. We’ll see.
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Senator, I think you’re right on. Stay away from the big mistake and keep the foot on the gas.
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I hope UGA comes out with a redemption attitude and then all stats are off.
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Of course they held on 4 & a bit. Wonder when we’ll ever see John Jenkins in that situation?
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Boykin is a DGD.. Came back for his year and is def first half mvp
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God I wish we had 11 more Boykins.
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Love me some Boykin…like to see him get a pick in the second half to help his draft stock…DGD and I’d like to see him playing on Sundays
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FINISH THE DRILL Dawgs in the 2nd half!!!!!!!!!!!
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Holler at ur Boykin!!!
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Go Dawgs!!! Keep it up!
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Pollack sure looks skinny today..moved up in the world from sports talk in Atlanta….still wish he hadnt gotten hurt so we could have seen him play in the pros
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I’m so much more excited to watch the defense play than I am to watch the offense. Boykin’s on fire. Jarvis Jones is as disruptive as ever. And Alec Ogletree is simply a monster. God bless you, Todd Grantham.
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They score a TD to pull within 8 and we decide to start running the ball?
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I guess we are a bit gunshy after the pick. Crowelll being out for the game isn’t helping.
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Well looks like someone made some halftime adjustments and someone just took a nap or something. Unreal.
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I truly don’t know what to make of Aaron Murray. Maybe the guy just can’t play a competent game in the state of Florida…
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I’m with Dukes – AM struggles in big games. Just tries to do too much I think. Gets over amped.
Something to work on in off season.
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Yep. Once again, it’s all about ST mistakes and OFF turnovers.
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The ST is looking fine to me, if AM would quit screwing over the D, this game could have been easily in hand right now…. Instead of me ignoring customers and screaming at the radio at work. How can he look so on, throwing better deep balls than Matt Ryan… Then unravel?!?!
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Dawgs starting a trend by choking in the 2nd half
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Hunker down dawgs!!!!! The offense ain’t gonna do it… As I write this…. Pick.
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There we go D!!! Let’s punch this in.
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Jesus. Can the D just stay out there and play offense too?
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Aaron Murray? More like Errant murray.
Can Boykin throw it? 🙂
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I swear I think I’ve seen this movie somewhere
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Hope our recruits are watching. We need OL and RB help.
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WTF is up with Cousins? That interception just killed…. oh, wait a minute. Wrong QB.
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Man I hate that for Blair.
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Evil Richt has been replaced by Huge Pussy Richt for this game, that must have been who recruited Huge Pussy Crowell.
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What was Richt supposed to do? We couldn’t run the ball. Murray was throwing to their guys as much as to ours. The best thing we could do was play defense … until they ran out of gas.
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Huge Pussy Crowell? The guy who keeps attempting to go, despite a chronic ankle injury?
This loss is in no way on Crowell.
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Chronic vaginitis is more like it. I hope Crowell never plays another down for Georgia. He is not worthy of the jersey. His presence is simply discouraging other RB’s from signing.
This is an excerpt from FoxSports during the week before the SEC title game:
“In one of the early-week full-contact practices, Crowell did not appreciate being tackled roughly by the scout team, especially after the defensive squad celebrated the hit with whoops and a little needling. According to reports, Crowell sulked the rest of that day and came out the following practice wearing a no-contact jersey that he, himself, put on without telling any of the coaches. This did not sit well with Ben Jones, Brandon Boykin and several other seniors who voiced their displeasure to Crowell in a way that left little to interpretation.”
http://www.foxsportssouth.com/12/03/11/Isaiah-Crowell-an-issue-for-Georgia/landing_sec.html?blockID=618384
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Brandon-Didn’t you admit last week that you were a troll and kissed off? In fact, you crowed about it. That was the only post I remember reading from you and it shows no one took you seriously. Guess we won’t take you seriously again.
Brandon is a TROLL by self admission. There are numerous ones on many blogs and they are trying to make up for their frustration of not hurting the team with their horse manure this year. The 10-game streak sent them underground, but MSU’s good play has brought them back out.
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Playmakers at every position on offense and we go conservative on just about every possession but one in the second half.
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We can’t run it. We through a pick about every 15 attempts. What’s a coordinator to do?
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A competent coordinator would find creative ways to get the ball to our playmakers, not call draws and TB dives.
We continued to run play action even though there was no threat if we handed the ball off, and our WRs had no shot to get open.
We weren’t looking at quick slants, didn’t do anything with a fullback, and didn’t even need to bring our TEs on the trip down.
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True dat’ about the TEs. How in all of God’s creation can Charles catch ZERO passes? It is nearly incomprehensible, especially considering that there seemed to be blitzes coming consistently.
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What draws are you talking about? I saw Boykin and Smith on offense a great deal in the second half. We used every tailback on the roster to try to get something going. You’re just not going to run the ball when your offensive line can’t block worth a damn.
We did use the tight ends. We used them to block. What use is running a route when the DE is sitting on Murray’s face?
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Maybe zook brought addazio with him for the bowl…..
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Curious why we refused to attempt to get a LITTE closer on Blair’s first kick? I mean that’s right in his 2011 meltdown range….
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Guess I Spoke too soon on ST not looking bad. Well still, pretty good season actually IMHO. one of the proud few that after all the promise we showed vs SC I told people we’d win out the schedule. We’re a deeper online, a ST coach, and a few hard nosed backs from being a force to be reckoned with. Love the dawgs always have always will. Good season boys, I hate saying this but y’all will be used to it…. We’ll get em next year.
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I have to admit as we go into the 3rd OT, I feel after not being able to run the clock out, not being able to stop a team with no timeouts from driving, and then deciding to not advance the ball in OT to win to allow a struggling kicker to try a 43 yard FG….we need to learn some lessons from today so I I really have mixed feelings about the final result. Sorry, I have to be honest.
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Umm richt haters need to find a new damn scapegoat. Tell Am to not let them back in the game… Tell our kicker to not choke again this year, and you don’t like the it play calls?! Yeah running it against them was a JOKE. I would have thrown it everytime at end of game too…It was a hard fought game but I’m sick of our D basically handing the other teams its butts, completely in control, and the AM putting the D on their heals. He’s out best option clearly and made some great throws, but time to start giving other guys some meaningly snaps.
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Sorry, I hope you aren’t calling me a Richt hater. Perhaps you hit the reply button in error.
I will say that decision in the 1st OT to play for the low percentage FG is the worst since he ran the clock out on the goal line against The aU in 2001.
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Agreed and apologizes that wasn’t supposed to be a reply to you
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Did Reggie Ball suit up for us today? I hate it for the kid, but I think Murray is the MVP for MSU today.
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He can always be counted on for a sack, fumble or interception when the defense needs it.
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Well that was a fitting end. Nice way to go into the offseason, gentlemen.
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Let me be the first to congratulate Justin Anderson & Blair Walsh for graduating.
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And they will leave with a certain combination of curious laurels! Good stuff.
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Reckon we will go undefeated next year?
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For calling a play action pass on 3rd & 10 in overtime, I blame Bobo. Do you? It’s a laughable call. That and calling about a grand total of 2 outside runs all day long.
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We can’t count on Crowell for any game. At least we know that going into next year.
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True ‘dat!
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They wanted it more. Period.
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Agree, I was worried about that. Not only did they want it more, they deserved the win more.
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+1. Go watch the speech of Kirk Cousins on YouTube. If character has anything to do with winning close athletic contests you will see from that speech what Michigan State had going for the Spartans. My congratulations to Michigan State University on Its victory and to Kirk Cousins, who never gave up when it would have been very easy to do so.
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How can you guys proffer that after UGa was kicking them into submission 16-0 with 30 min. to go? For the love of Buddha, the Dawgs held them to 2(!) first downs in the 1st half! It was eerily similar to the SEC Title game. The D went wiggly for a while in the 2nd half, and then it became BoboBall. Ultimately, it was a weird, weird game with a hat-full of QB indecision.
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I can’t decide, is Aaron Murray like a really hot girlfriend that you like to take to parties, but she’s awful in the sack, or is he like one that’s really good in the sack that you don’t want your friends to see you with?
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He’s like the smoking hot popular girl that seems ultra cool too, until she gets a little into the beam, then Neither you or your friends can stand her. Her belligerent behavior gets the cops called and the parties ruined.
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To me, he comes off as the nice “Art-Class” gal that tucks at the first sign of danger.
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I don’t care what the record was, the Dawgs didn’t beat one good team all season. 27 point choke in the 2nd half not to mention a beatdown in the 2nd half by LSU. Tell me why Richt deserve a big extension?
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Have to abide by those considered statements. He can always override some of those “sketchy” late game offensive playcalls, running the ball up the gut.
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Out-coached in all three OTs. What a shame.
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When will be stop recruiting globs of goo for OL and find big athletes that can drive forward off the snap on running plays,, and move their feet when pass blocking? Biggest line in all the football world and how many tackles for loss on running plays? How many sacks? How many hurries? And that didn’t just become a problem this year.
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All the beef in the world can’t get you that decided edge over an onrushing DL when the player just lacks that bit of burst.
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Yup. We’re still in the linemen business. Need some bad.
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We should have tried to score instead of running out the clock at the end of regulation. FIRE BOBO!!!!!!
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They had two attempts at passes that “could” have set up Walsh (!) for a 60 yd. FG. Everyone was led to believe he had one of those in him. Of course, a 42-yarder would have been appreciated.
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I’m still apoplectic over the gutless runs up the gut on the prior offensive series. It was as stupid as CMR punting the ball with 2 minutes in the 2001 Music City Bowl.
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