If you’re looking for a dose of feel good today, there’s this: KC Joyner, ESPN’s Dick Morris-like statistician whose 2011 output included pieces on why Georgia wouldn’t win the SEC East and how Marcus Lattimore was only the fifth best back in the conference, explains to us why Georgia is overrated (“But if we take a closer look at Georgia’s metrics and game tape, it is clear that this is a flawed and overrated squad that may barely deserve a top-10 ranking at this moment, let alone top 5.”).
Thanks, man. I feel better already.
Get The Picture 
Let me guess, tOSU should be higher, right?
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KC Joyner is a tool.
His ND bias is showing bigtime. Still bitter about 1980 there, KC?
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The pessimist in me tends to agree with a lot of what he has to say. We have not looked like a top 5 team by any means.
Fortunately, here we sit still undefeated with the ability to correct these flaws in our team. Hopefully this week in practice. You have to believe that our defense has better than we’ve played. I have faith in CTG.
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Personally I thoight we looked like a #2 team with a freshman kicker and indecisive kick returners until late into the game vs tenn. when we had trouble stopping them and couldn’t get first downs to end the game I got concerned. On Saturday night will see who we are.
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Barely deserving of a top 10 ranking, huh? Fascinating. Guess we’re one of the worst undefeated teams in the country.
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The guy writes outrageous stuff just to try and get people to sing up for “insider” access…total garbage.
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Anyone have the full text? I’m not an insider. Paying ESPN more money when they already make a fortune off my via ads just seems bogus.
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Well where have you been?
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I haven’t read him but I cannot disagree that we wouldn’t belong in past Top 10s, but it is hard to say we don’t belong in this one. None of last week’s Top 10 looked good for 60 minutes, but who is outside the Top 10 that has looked any better? Alabama is the only team that has consistently looked like what I would call a “traditional” powerhouse. Perhaps the poll should be Alabama #1 and about a 12 way tie for 2nd. UGA will find out this month where they fit, as will SC, FL, and LSU. Polls don’t matter in the SEC, we decide the best on the field, and no numerical specific ranking should be taken before mid-October. How is that Top 10 Arkansas working out?
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Damn well said there my Scotch loving brother.
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The post below, by the way, was in the works when yours came up….funny how….
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Do you define a “traditional powerhouse” in the same way as Stewart Mandel?
Good natured ribbing aside, I think we can agree that the polls do seem to be Mandel-like for now – more about how the helmets look than the actual on-field performance.
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Yeah, may have to retire that term for CFB these days. Not much tradition about it…even in the Old Man conference.
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I’d go one further and say Bama could still be had. Other than a Michigan team that gameplanned their own best offensive threat out of the game (via not running Robinson), they haven’t faced any offense with a pulse…and as decent as McCarron has been, their running game has been several steps back from last year, especially given how “great” their oline was talked up to be. Texas ran all over Ole Miss…Yeldon and Lacy were barely cracking 4 ypc.
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Since I am not, thank God, an ESPN Insider, apparently I can’t read this thing. But, if what this gentleman is saying is that we have not played at a consistently high level in every game this year, who can argue with that?
I have been careful to watch at least one game by all those teams ranked ahead of us, and most behind (certainly Carolina).
I have doubted our early high ranking my own self, knowing it to be meaningless anyway, but in spots, to me we have looked pretty good, are we, at this point in the season, as good as Bama….nope.
I don’t need a buncha bullshit from the WWL Weasels to tell me that.
I am also aware, as we all should be, that our early high ranking is based on paper, paper I might point out, which is too slick to have any further use.
So if this thing here waters down the Kool Aid a bit, I view that as a good thing, what with the Kharmic Bitches, hubris and all that.
Settle the question on the field…its the only way. Anything else is just meaningless prattle.
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It is evident that many of us consider that it is an affrontery to pay to read pome ‘d rue from people that you don’t know as far as objectivity and intellectual honesty can be thrown. That said, the “inconsistency” phrase can stay in, but the lukecold knowledge and thinking required to make that statement about UGA by drawing on the phrase for decision making is worthy of the ” fuzzy thinkin’ ” of the year award. It has the logic of a grape.
Now I’ll toss myself into that bin and say, as I look upward in the polls, only one team will be an equitable tussle while the rest would be less. Take a look at FSU’s path to their rank and there isn’t a thing in their games nor results that places them from below UGA to above. It’s a friggin beauty contest and we are the broad with the smirk on the mouth. I believe (and this soon may be validated) we can beat LSU and corral Oregon’s smallish Pac12 runners. Those beliefs are based in what I have seen of each team and would raise KC, the pundit, a job and a retirement fund that we ought to be considered a co #1 instead of ranked 5th. I told you that I had tossed myself into that bin, didn’t I?
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pome ‘d rue?….Goddamn Cojo….send me some a that there pome ‘d rue…I need something to lighten my load.
Of course all that shit is a beauty contest….having a fancy quarterback is like having a large….smile?
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Mac’s point about Arkansas is especially telling for this kind of paper assessment of football teams….Arkansas was picked high because their quarterback was said to be super, their rotten defense was ignored, their coach’s escapades were ignored….Some of Georgia’s high ranking was based on Aaron Murray and proved to be a pretty good reason for thinking Georgia might be pretty good….and we are.
and, Mac is absolutely spot on in his assessment it should be “Bama” and a cast of others.
That process thing they got down in Tuscaloosa…Darth Cock never in his wildest dreams conjured up a process like that.
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I hoping the UT game will get the defense kick started similar to USC game last year with the run game
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He may be right.
I may be crazy.
But it just might beeeeeee a lunatic you’re lookin’ for!
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For those who are not insiders, here’s the summary.
“My name is KC Joiner. I watched the Georgia-Tennessee game and noticed that Georgia’s defense and special teams did not play well. Instead of watching the other games played this year, I will just assume they never play well. Next I will pull Georgia’s worst statistical categories and construct an argument around self serving numbers. I will not address the offense.”
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Classic!! Isn’t this the template of all Journalism these days???
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+1
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It is certainly the template for ESPN journalism.
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I see it like Coach Dye’s “not man enough” comment. Maybe we’ll use this to the same effect.
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I saw this article earlier in this context:
“@SacManJones_29: Lol who wrote this http://t.co/cfeHrQep”
Jarvis clearly disagrees with the premise of this article.
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i’m glad they are aware of this article. hopefully it’s printed out in its entirety and posted up in the locker room.
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My thoughts exactly. A personal copy should be distributed to all the players.
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Maybe we should create a media czar position in the athletic dept. to make sure they ONLY read the naysayer articles. God knows this program doesn’t always do well when the media begins to sing our praises.
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this line is gold:
“What may be just as damaging is that the Georgia offense has the same type of penchant for allowing big plays, as the Bulldogs rank 11th in the SEC in tackles for loss allowed (30) and ninth in turnovers (nine).”
it’s nice that he didn’t mention the small insignificant fact that the offense that is so prone to giving up big plays is also first in the nation in making them.
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LSU and South Carolina have each turned it over 8. Also, neither is averaging 48 points a game.
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Dawgraded by ESPN. What a surprise? I have been guilty of pessimism with the team after a few games too, but let me ask a serious question here, what is it with the national press (some local too) that just finds so many fatal flaws with our team even when they’re winning? FSU had a very similar game against clemson and I didn’t hear about how they didn’t belong. I haven’t heard how their schedule is so easy and what a break they’re getting because of it? Is the dawgrading from the press because we have a roster full of players that will play on Sundays and they just think we’re a bunch of undisciplined thugs? or is it because Mark Richt hasn’t been the type of coach to embarrass another team if he can just run the clock out? Was it the celebration? I don’t understand it but there seems to be so many examples, just going back to 2008 and we drop in polls after two straight wins…etc
I know it shouldn’t matter and we should embrace the us against the world scenario but damn-it, it sure mattered in 2007 when Dick Herbstreet and company commenced with their plan to get us out of the BCS game.
Someone already said it earlier though, the SEC doesn’t need rankings because we’ll get to see it settled on the field. GATA Dawgs!
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This. Throw LSU as an example along with FSU too, and on and on. The main thing that bothers me is how much power the four-letter has and how they seemingly sit around and have topical meetings entitled “how can we stop and/or hurt Georgia this week”. I mean did he just grab us out of a hat to hammer on or was it specifically on purpose? The paranoid ScorpJ 3 in me is forced to ponder. And I’ve also heard Cowherd bangin’ on us on the radio, various analyists hate us (HOLTZ), I just can’t figure it out.
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It’s their favorite pasttime (chuckle). I feel less bad about this past weekend’s game today than I did late Saturday. Given our overall history, it was probably not realistic to expect two “complete” games on successive weekends. This is true of most other programs as well. At any rate, we did have our lapses against Tennessee, gave our Team and Coaches an interesting laundry list to work on this week. Hopefully it all results in a focussed effort against the Clucksters this Saturday night. If it does, maybe Granny Holtz will provide us all with a little late-night entertainment.
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Well stated Vindex. Looking forward to seeing Granny slur her words trying to defend the company position of the ‘Cocks being the better team, even though we just beat them.
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Agreed. Sounds like ole Bulldogs are here today. I think that “settling it on the field” gives our men a hardon to do exactly that.
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“I have been guilty of pessimism with the team after a few games too, but let me ask a serious question here, what is it with the national press (some local too) that just finds so many fatal flaws with our team even when they’re winning?”
Perhaps they read uga blogs for such info. We are not an accepting tribe.
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The Vandy game was a mirage. That was a tUGA team of jacked up 18-22 yr olds focused on destruction. It was an emotion game. We aren’t as bad “talent-wise” as our stats say. But this is the same basic talent that was a top 5 D last year, so what is the problem? Against UT, it seemed as if we didn’t want to get burned deep so we tried to keep everything in front of us and it ended up looking like a Free Willie D with the cushion we gave. I hope UT’s OL is just that good because SC is going to maul us. Rajon Neal is good but Lattimore is better. And if UT was averaging 5-7 ypc, what is Lattimore gonna do? And as others have pointed out, at the end of the game, when its time to grind out a 1st down, we couldn’t do it. Against a UT defense. What will SC’s do to us? Gurley and Marshall had great stats, but you take out the 75, 72 and 51 yd run and its a 2-3 ypc against UT.
Flame away, call me a hater, say I’m not a true fan. But we aren’t going to win Saturday playing the way we have in 4 out of our 5 games. I didn’t say we can’t, I just don’t expect it to happen. Sure Joyner cherry-picked his stats but his last statement rings particularly true to me (based on what we’ve seen in the games so far): “As great as Georgia has been in moving the ball, when a roster has this many potential points of failure, there is bound to be a day when the weaknesses finally catch up with the strengths.”
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“As great as Georgia has been in moving the ball, when a roster has this many potential points of failure, there is bound to be a day when the weaknesses finally catch up with the strengths.”
The above is true for, well, anyone.
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Hater. Seriously though, everyone’s stats look worse if you take away their biggest plays, especially if they’re that big (unless you were a receiver or QB in the WVU-Baylor game). As to whether or not Georgia will win Saturday if they turn in the same performance they did in four of five games, you could just as easily make the same argument about South Carolina or any team outside of Alabama and Oregon at this point.
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I don’t think the Vandy game was a “mirage” at all, they we determined but we were focused….and better. Many of the points you bring up are true but each week is an entirely different group of variables, especially matchups and emotion/motivation. It is why you cannot play a game off the stat sheet or comparitive analysis of common opponents. The biggest error in your post was (when it was time to grind out a first down, we couldn’t”. That just wasn’t true, we could have moved the ball on virtually every singe series, we chose to handcuff ourselves by going ultra conservative and ignoring what was available. The UT defense was helpless until they stacked the box and we ran up the middle.
It depends on how much our guys want to get after it this week, we are a better team than SC if both performing at our best, imo, but either is capable of winning the game if the other doesn’t bring their best. I like our A game against their A game; we were better last year, and should be better this year but I think the intangibles and home field give them a decent shot at us. The optimist in me says we show up and win a highly contested game of two good teams, the pessimist says our D hasn’t gotten their 2011 form back and we lose it. My split personalities will battle this thing to a draw all week but none of us will know until it plays out. I do like the defense getting that bad publicity, it just might wake them up.
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If you take away what happened from 6:00 in the second quarter to the 1:00 mark in the second quarter, everybody is pumping sunshine out their asses because UGA beat Tennessee by four touchdowns.
Three points in rebuttal:
1) The return game must be competent. That has to be fixed this week, and it sounds like Rhett McGowan is the punt return guy now. Hopefully it will be more reliably good.
2) I think Grantham did give UT the cushion. He thought the front would be able to handle the run better than they did, and Bray would get careless and stupid (he did). I think that will turn next week when they will gear up to stop the run, and force Connor Shaw to hit something deep… similar to the Missouri gameplan, except Rambo will be back there instead of Norman.
3) The Tennessee o-line has only given up 2 sacks all year, and is tied for first in the conference. Georgia has given up 7. Alabama’s vaunted, all-american, super hero offensive line has given up 11. South Carolina has given up 13. Tennessee’s offensive line is that good.
I just don’t see that many “potential points of failure” on the roster. What spot needs a significant upgrade?
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Very interesting comments. Food for thought.
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Y’all can throw around all the stats you want, but if you went to Sanford Stadium last Saturday, you saw a team that will lose a couple of games this year unless it quickly improves on defense (and I ain’t talkin’ about Tennessee).
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I don’t disagree with you conceptually, but Georgia won’t play an offensive team better than Tennessee until the bowl game (and there’s no guarantee we’ll see one then either).
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Sure, I’ll agree that any team outside of of Bama and Oregon “doesn’t deserve” a top 10 ranking based on any number of games/circumstances. But I’m not a fan of those teams. It doesn’t change the fact that we seem to be living on the edge. It’s not just “anyone” who is vying for a natty. If I’m a Maryland fan, I’m not worried about being ranked 9th or worse in the conference in almost every main D stat. As for the rushing stats, the point is that it would be nice to average more than 2-3 on the non-big runs. Wouldn’t 4-5 ypc be a nice average, show the ability to grind out a 1st down or two (like how UT did). We don’t need upgrades in talent. I’m just waiting for this team to play consistently like the top 5 team we are. I’ll take 51-44 all the way to 14-0. Kudos to the team for playing hard and making the plays to win the UT game or to not folding being down 17-9 to Mizzou. But to ignore away some of the issues we’ve seen on the field, the way we are playing just makes me nervous that we’ll slip up and lose a shot at a NC when we’ve got every break in world going our way this year with schedule and talent.
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I’m concerned about the defense too, but I think it’s crazy to worry about a running game that’s averaging 270 yards (or whatever it is) a game. Alabama just averaged 3.7 yards per carry against Ole Miss, and it drops to 2.5 if you take away their three longest, but not very long, runs, and that’s the grindiest of grind-it-out teams in the country.
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Related note: Texas ran for 350 and 6.5 per carry against Ole Miss. Bama’s run game ain’t what it was last year. Every team has some flaws this year.
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I did that math earlier and yes, those were the figures without the long runs. Makes no difference because you can do that to every runners’s stats and come up with abyssmal figures. But, yep, I did that math earlier to look for the exact same thing. Look at Driskel’s, Lattimo’s, both of Bama’s running backs with the same intense light. Not even Scorp could find worry in the two performances of our RBs who both shared in SEC Freshmen Players of the Week Award. For all the rest of the SEC RBs, none measured up. And you are worried?
You must get a shovel as a present before Christmas so that you can shovel pome ‘d rue under the tree on the Eve. But I think that trying to screw the pony as well is a little too much.
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I’ve been trying to figure out “pome ‘d rue” for a bit, and I figured out what you were going for finally.
It’s “pommes de rue”. Literally translates to “street apples”.
(Sorry for the “that guy” moment. Just took 3 semesters of French in college and I’m trying to help you out here.)
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It’s a horse apple, which is a polite way of saying horse shit.
That Cojo….he works hard to be polite.
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I have spelled it Pome de Rue, Pom de Rue, Pome ‘d Rue, Pome d’ Rue; all of the foregoing, trolling for a Frog.
Gotcha! 🙂
The plural correction you have given is right on, since “Road Apples” was the idea. Hope everyone who didn’t translate it goes back and takes a look. My French was a summer cram course at UGA and scoring in the top 60% (I don’t know where specifically since the idea was to be in the top 60% to pass and be able to read technical papers written in French) of the Princerton Exam given at that time (66-67). Unbelievably, I have used it quite a bit in my work up until 2002 (in Belgium), but can’t speak a word in conversation except in casual greetings. Having had Spanish, declensions proved to be easy in French.
Merci beaucoup.
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Just think, if you take away Cumming’s two interceptions he wouldn’t have had any. And if you take away Murray’s completions all he would have thrown would be in-completions and an interception.
Do you really think we wanted to beat Vandy more than we will want to beat USC?
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When you compare and hype SC’s players higher than they deserve (i.e., Their D should be better than Tenn’s and will magically be so awesome as to stop Murray and Co), you lose the impetous of a rational argument. You give Tenn short shrift on something they worked on very hard (like Buffalo) and put up a great D battle. If you didn’t see that or want to wish it away, you didn’t watch the game on both sides of the ball.
The “feelings” about how this game will be played run the gamut, and while 97 is in the shallow part of the negative curve, you have no more arguing validity than someone “guarantee!”ing this game as a win.
Tear up SC’s game the same way and you might even create arguing points, but to give it so one-sided while elevating SC to an overhyped spot doesn’t cut it.
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Take out the runs of 75, 72, and 51 yds and it’s only 2-3 yds per carry? Yea, and if my aunt had balls, she’d be my uncle.
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I’m not trying to be negative but I will freely admit to being pessimistic about our chances against SC. I will freely admit that my comments can be viewed as negative. I’m simply giving what I see as cause for concern in the lead up to Saturday. Yes, of course i think we have a chance to win and yes, grand scheme of things, we’re 5-0 which of course I’m happy for – kudos and appreciation to the team on their hard work and efforts to this point. I’m sorry I just want us to look like Bama in getting there. I will work more on enjoying the ride.
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And it’s a fine ride that we may not see for a while. Congratulations on coming around to enjoy your Dawgs! We don’t have to be alike, all of us are critical about something on the team, but we try to present a solid front of cheering for coaches as well as players so as not to frighten the recruits..
Scope has taken the worry burden for us all, but he is going to need a tag-team partner. Think you are up for the job?
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Coming into the Tennessee game, Georgia had five rushes of 30+ yards from the Gurley/Marshall tandem and only one lost fumble from the offensive starting 11. So if you think about it, the first-half turnovers, not the long runs, were the anomaly or the “mirage” in that game.
Not that this necessarily means anything against South Carolina, mind you, but let’s don’t act like it’s been nothing but doom and gloom for the entire first month of the season.
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I’d rather play D like 2011 Alabama than play O like 2010 Auburn, if I had the choice. But as long as you win either way, this preference ranks about 10 millionth in order of priority.
Against FBS competition, UGA has the best offense in the entire nation right now in terms of yards per play. The Dawgs score so quickly most of the time that it gives the D no chance to breathe, and the D hasn’t gelled yet for other reasons (clearly). Perhaps we continue to have average-at-best defense this year, as shocking as that would be. But when you are getting almost 3 yards per play more than your opponents, you are going to be one of the strongest teams in the country. It doesn’t actually matter if you do it by having a 5ypp O and a 2 ypp D, or an 8 ypp O and a 5 ypp D. Either way, you are going to be a likely-to-win team. (It’s a pythagorean win theorem thing).
There’s no need for us to blow smoke up our own skirts as fans and say “Our D will definitely get better.” Maybe it won’t. I don’t know. But it’s equally dumb to write that we are “overrated” when clearly we are dominating according to a different formula. Safe O and dominant D is not the ONLY formula (though, again, it is probably the very best one in terms of national titles, but other formulas produce great results, too).
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Pretty typical “except for all the things that make them great, they’re really not great” analysis, if you ask me. As others have noted, the same can be done for pretty much everyone at this point.
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Tennessee ran 85 plays on Saturday. 85. UGA gave up .1 yards more per play on Saturday than they did the week before against Vandy. Yardage wasn’t the difference in 3 points versus 44 points.
Against D1 opponents, UGA is 121 out of 125 in number of plays the opposing team has run. Screw the total yardage…we keep playing bad defensive teams and it is going to have an affect on the yardage given up because of plays and TOP.
Anyway, what he fails to mention is the fact that USCar has some similar flaws and rather than analyze that, he just throws out some random B.S. about USCar beating UGA.
First of all, UGA gave up 2.77 ypc to Vandy and Mizzou. Carolina gave up 2.51 ypc to the same teams.
And as far as the pass defense goes…Georgia will not play a team with better wide receivers all year. Patterson and Hunter are legitimate 1st round receivers…Bray has 1st round talent (and 7th round intangibles). By the way, the ‘horrible’ pass defense gave up fewer yards per attempt against Vandy than USCar…and Mizzou completed almost 70% of its passes on USCar (as compared to 61% against UGA) and Mizzou had a higher passing rating against USCar than UGA.
What a dumb-a–. He shifts back and forth from metrics to traditional stats to make his point and in the end looks like a jerk with an axe to grind.
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This guy states that UGA gets penalized too often. Apparently, he didn’t realize that Alabama is the most penalized team in the SEC and UGA is 8th!?! So I guess that means that Alabama is really undeserving of its ranking, right?
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As Matt Hinton and others have shown, there is little correlation between penalties and won/loss percentage.
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Wanted to link to someone else who’s noted KC’s fails:
http://www.bleedinggreennation.com/2011/10/19/2500908/this-week-in-kc-joyner-mike-wallace-is-better-than-calvin-johnson
Herein, KC’s scientific approach is demystified.
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If it had only been one long run, I’m more inclined to agree. But with three TD runs of over 51 yards, you can’t just remove them as an exception. This is obviously by design and talent. Also, as the Senator linked to, when your QB is ranked third in the nation is passer rating, you can get away with 2-3 ypc from the backs. This is really just a long wided way of saying, I blame Bobo.
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Yep. At this point I’m just accepting that we’ve lucked into having two RBs as fast as any we’ve had since at least pre-knee injury Robert Edwards, if not going all the way back to Hearst in ’92.
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Anyone can play this game.
Ok, take away the big runs. The we’ll also take away Malcolm Mitchell’s busted sweep (10 yard loss), Murray’s efforts (3 for -10, including the victory formation at the end), and the whole fourth quarter against the stacked box (7 for 0 yards). That leaves us right around 25 by the backs for 112 yards against a non-stacked box in the first three quarters, or 4.48 ypc, on plays that did not result in a long TD.
(Did I mention that Gurley could have kept going on that first TD id it weren’t for the end zone? Surely he had another 20 yards there.)
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That is why the games are played. There is nothing better than meeting ND in another NC game with UGA running them over like Vandy.
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You can use statistics to prove anything you want when you pick and choose which ones you include. Next week this team will have adjusted to moving around to include Tree and Rambo and they will be as motivated as they were against Vandy.
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