Friday lunch buffet

No turkey in this buffet.

• Harvey Updyke’s rehabilitation hasn’t exactly taken hold.
• With all the bad luck with injuries we’ve seen in Athens, I’m kind of surprised this happened with the other Bulldogs.
• Speaking of injuries, it’s hard to believe that Todd Gurley’s still got a decent shot at another 1,000-yard rushing season.
• Gene Chizik reflects.  Yawn.
• If you haven’t heard, next year Georgia plays Arkansas in Little Rock.
• One reason we always seem to hear about patience and Georgia quarterbacks is because Bobo and Richt are good at developing their starters at the position.
• Tennessee refuses to release information about whether Maurice Couch or Tyler Bray committed any NCAA violations, citing the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, a federal law designed to protect student privacy.  Wait, what?

Analogy of the day

If you’re a Georgia defender, Paul Johnson is just like Jimmy Williamson.

Defensive players don’t like dealing with triple-option offenses like Georgia Tech (7-4) and Georgia Southern run, and specifically don’t like having to keep their eyes out for pesky offensive linemen who consistently dive at their knees.

“It’s just like being out on the streets: you’ve got to keep your head on a swivel and watch your surroundings,” Smith said. “Protect yourself at all times.”

Sometimes players can’t play because of suspension and sometimes they can’t play because their knees are suspended.

Smith’s first substantial playing time actually came as the result of an illegal chop block that knocked DeAngelo Tyson out of Georgia’s 2011 win over the Yellow Jackets. Smith, then a green sophomore, replaced Tyson in the lineup and recorded seven tackles and 1.5 tackles for a loss, earning SEC Co-Defensive Lineman of the Week honors in the process.

Scooters and cut blocks.  I hate ’em both.

It really never gets old.

WordPress just reminded me that GTP celebrates its seventh anniversary today.  It was Georgia’s ’06 win over Georgia Tech that inspired me to start blogging, and this post was the result.  (Thanks for the memories, Reggie.)

And while I’m reminiscing, I can’t help but share my favorite post about Tech over that seven years.

When you say “Tech fan base”, you’ve said it all.

Math? Nobody said there’d be math!

The AJ-C surveys the stats for Georgia and Georgia Tech and concludes that the “numbers suggest close game”.  Eh, maybe.

The paper is hanging a lot on the fact that Tech sits at a lofty 16th nationally in total defense – hey, Ted Roof’s on the Broyles watch list! – but that ranking is a trifle misleading in that the Jackets have faced not one, but two 1-AA offenses this season.  Now that’s not totally their fault, as they had to deal with a last-minute scheduling hole created by conference expansion, but it’s still the hand they’ve played this season.

So guess what happens when you look at the total defense rankings against only D-1 opponents?  Georgia Tech drops to a still solid, but less impressive 29th.

But even that doesn’t tell the real story.  The real story is that Tech’s defense has been on the field for fewer plays than all but one team in the country.  That’s because Georgia Tech’s offense does a very good job keeping the defense on the sidelines.  This brings me to something that drives me crazy, people who argue that time of possession is a meaningless stat.  It’s not meaningless if dominating it is part of a team’s philosophy, which is clearly the case with the Jackets.

And it’s a big deal when you look at how defenses rank in the context of yards per play.  Georgia Tech is decidedly mediocre by the standards of that metric, at 5.81, which ranks 77th nationally.  How do I know that’s mediocre?  Because Georgia is 66th, at 5.55 ypp.

The offensive story is a little more lopsided, perhaps surprisingly.  Despite all the injuries which have plagued them, the Dawgs still rank 14th nationally in total offense against D-1 teams; generating about seventy yards less per game, Georgia Tech ranks 56th.  It’s not explained by the number of plays each offense has run – Georgia is 68th and Tech is 105th, but GT has played one less game against FBS teams than Georgia, so when you average it out, the Jackets have run about one play per game more than Georgia.  It’s chalked up to offensive yards per play, as the 10th-ranked Dawgs average an entire yard per play more than Georgia Tech.

All of which suggests rather loudly to me that the biggest key to Saturday’s game is Georgia Tech keeping Georgia’s offense off the field as much as possible.

The difference between wanting to look smarter and wanting to win

Dan Mullen showed some cojones in last night’s Egg Bowl.

Then, in overtime, came the boldest decision of all: on fourth down with the ball on his own 3-yard line, Dan Mullen decided to go for it. Everything in college football overtime conventional wisdom says to kick the field goal and avoid allowing the other team to win with its own kick. But Mississippi State defied the wisdom, and the once-injured Prescott plunged into the end zone for the go ahead touchdown.

Of course, all he’s got to show for that is an upset win over the in state rival.  That hardly compares to this:

Tech people walked away from that game feeling good about themselves, which never happens when Tech loses to Georgia in any sport. But it happened this time. It happened because Techies, who pride themselves on brainpower, were tickled at having outsmarted Big Brother.

OK, I know what you Bulldogs are saying. I’ve read the responses to this little missive from late last night. To paraphrase the stance of (some) Georgia folks: “If Paul Johnson is such a genius, how come he lost to Mark Richt again? Isn’t the name of the game to win?”

Well, yes. But there can be honor in defeat, especially when the defeat is so hard-fought and cleverly wrought.

Whatever gets you through the night, I guess.  I still think I’d rather have the W, but then maybe I ain’t that smart.