From Bill Connelly’s Ohio State preview:
For this year’s preview series, I began using percentiles as a way to communicate how well a team played in each of its games last year. It is a useful concept — most of us understand percentiles thanks to standardized testing — and it gives us some clues to how a team’s final ratings came to pass.
Only five teams put together 90th-percentile performances in at least 60 percent of their games last year.
Percentage of 2014 games in the 90th percentile or better
1. Ohio State (73%)
2. Alabama (71%)
3. Ole Miss (69%)
4. Oregon (67%)
5. Georgia (61%)
That’s some pretty rarefied air there. Ole Miss, besides its performance dropping precipitously towards the end of the season, had the misfortune of playing in the same division as Alabama, so it’s understandable that the Black Bear Rebels didn’t show up in the postseason. But, damn, Georgia, what’s your excuse?
Of course, this is entirely consistent with Connelly’s lofty projection of Georgia’s quality entering into this season. And none of us are going to be surprised if 2015 turns out to be another case of lather, rinse and repeat when it comes to the tale advanced stats tell about a season of Georgia football. At some point, this team, players and coaches both, has to quit whiffing at the most inopportune moments and simply play in a manner consistent with the sum of its parts.
As to when that time may come, your guess is as good as mine.
Get The Picture 
GRRRRRR. Brain fart U.
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I don’t know who wrote the commentary, it sounds like something I would say. Whoever wrote it had better brace for the onslaught of excuses from the coach lovers.
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I’m sure whoever wrote that is very concerned about your concerns.
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I figured it must have been written by someone who was unfamiliar with a lot of the posters prevailing attitudes around here. I’m pretty thick skinned, I hope the writer is too. To not blame the refs, the NCAA, Michael Adams, Greg McGarity, ESPN, the Athens police, etc for Georgia’s shortcomings goes against the narrative many around here live by and they generally do not take kindly to that kind of thinking.
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Do you really not know who Bill C. is?
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Do you really not know who writes the commentary outside of the quoted parts?
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Oh I get it…you were trying to make a joke. I get jokes.
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Apparently not. 🙂
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Didn’t you get the memo? Having used up every possible scapegoat, the recent narrative on here is trending towards an imaginary one…bad luck.
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Erik Kuselias on NBC Sports Radio last October stated the new normal in college football when he commented on the first playoff committee rankings: “Being number 4 is no worse than being number 1, and being number 5 is no better than being number 125.”
My personal outlook is that being number 5 is a great season and is a hell of a lot better than being 15, 25, 35, etc., but there are a lot of folks that disagree with me and who look for someone to blame for finishing 5th.
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It was all Bobo’s fault, and he is gone now!
Just kidding, I hope we hold it all together this year.
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We’re going to find out this season if it really was Bobo’s fault. Bobo was a convenient scapegoat because it maybe WAS his fault and the CMR defenders sure as hell didn’t want to blame the HC. If brain farts continue this season we’ll know for sure who’s responsible, won’t we?
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It was 100% Mark Richt’s fault. he is the coach. All the issues with recruiting, discipline, poor defense, bad calls at times, lack of fire which led to losing to inferior teams…..all that is on him. Now you see Pruitt, Rocker, Sherrer, Sale etc…and things have changed dramatically, but now the talent has to grow up. Bobo put up tons of points and yes had a few bonehead plays but they all do. NOW we have talent on both sides of the ball and you will likely see better results the next 4-5 years as opposed to the last 5.
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It will end when Mark Richt is no longer coach.
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Not terribly long ago an undefeated season for the Dawgs meant 11 wins and 1 loss to Florida. Now, undefeated appears to be 10-2. This program is not afraid to lose to anyone.
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Would be great to have at least one year where after the first quarter I don’t say to myself “Yep, I’ve seen this team before. Welcome back you bastards.”
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I honestly don’t get it…this should destroy the meme. The stat shows we were one of the most consistently excellent teams in college football last year.
It is Richts fault and I am honestly glad he is our coach.
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Georgia’s listed in a group with four other teams, three of which went to the CFP. Ole Miss, the fourth, was in the same division as Alabama. I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t shout consistently excellent to me.
What it suggests is that if Georgia had played consistently excellent football last season, it wouldn’t have to explain embarrassing losses to South Carolina or Florida. Especially the latter.
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yep…1 more game in the 90th percentile and UGA probably plays in the SEC title game.
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“IF ONLY!!!!”
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Therein lies the problem. Day late and a dollar short.
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That’s the “Georgia Way”. We are always going to be great next year or the year after next. Unfortunately, we are like the sign in the bar that says “Free Beer Tomorrow”.
All we can do is keep pulling for them and hoping the blind squirrel will find a nut one day.
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Of course, Ole Miss actually beat Alabama head to head, so they had to play some bad games themselves to lose out on the division. Their performances against LSU and Arkansas were almost as inexplicable as UGA’s duds. Well, not the Florida game, that was bizarre.
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That sounds suspiciously like a criticism of Richt Senator. Everyone knows you are a homer who doesn’t hold him up to high standards. 😉
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Being in the same division as Alabama didn’t keep Ole Miss out of the playoff……they beat Bama! Losing to LSU, Auburn and Arkansas did. Why do you keep saying that as if it has any connection to this at all?
Of course, Ohio State losing to VT is glossed over because that doesn’t fit the meme….right?
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Maybe I missed something, but I thought only one school could win a division.
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Ole mIss didn’t win the division because of their bad losses, not because they play in the same division as Bama (a team they beat), just as Connor and I pointed out above. Had Bama not been in the division they still would not have won the West, Miss St would have. That is what you missed Senator!
So yeah, only one team can win the division, but Ole Miss wasn’t going to be that team whether or not Bama was.
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You posit an alternative reality and then tell me how that reality is going to play out? Nice trick. You can’t know how Ole Miss would have done if Alabama didn’t play in the SEC West.
And if you’d take a minute to read what I actually wrote – Ole Miss, besides its performance dropping precipitously towards the end of the season, had the misfortune of playing in the same division as Alabama, so it’s understandable that the Black Bear Rebels didn’t show up in the postseason – you’d realize that you’re making an argument against something I didn’t post.
Did I miss anything else?
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I posit an alternative reality? This from the guy who made a blog post and ensuing arguments touting how great Ole Miss was and how they would have won the West if Alabama didn’t exist? At least you’re not full of yourself. Apparently, you’re missing the fact that ignoring Alabama doesn’t change the fact that Ole Miss still wouldn’t have been in the playoff. You gloss over their “performance dropping precipitously towards the end of the season” and claim it was Bama that kept them out of the postseason…..a statement that is absolutely false any way you want to twist it. You claim you aren’t making this argument but its right there in the original post and in your response…..”Ole Miss, ……, had the misfortune of playing in the same division as Alabama, so it’s understandable that the Black Bear Rebels didn’t show up in the postseason” Yeah, except Bama had nothing to do with Ole Miss not making the playoff, LSU, Arkansas, and Auburn did (what team from the East beat Auburn and Arkansas last year?).
Now, I can’t wait to see you twist and turn and pretend you’re still right. I’m sure there’s a word or two in this post you can latch onto to try to completely discredit the reality of the situation. Look, the idea that Georgia was great in 61% of our games and had a couple of stinkers is one that folks here will gladly jump on. Its one of the favorite memes of the forever disgruntled UGA fans. Ole Miss and Bama have nothing to do with it though and Ole Miss and Bama playing in the same division doesn’t have a thing to do with why Ole Miss didn’t make the playoffs, whether or not you’re willing to admit it.
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Let’s give ole Lady Luck her due, when has anyone ever had such a “ginormous anal rabbit’s foot’ as Malzon?
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Last year’s team had coaching mistakes, player lapses, and bad luck in each of the 3 losses. Every time those issues came back to bite the team in the @$$.
USCe – bad call on Gurley’s long TD run, the questionable play call on 1st and goal late, failures in the secondary and two missed short field goals
UF – poor coaching decision to attempt the FG, player lapse on the fake FG, inability (or unwillingness) to set the edge on D, Chubb’s fumble, and Andrews’ injury
tech – questionable decision to pooch (of course), failure to adjust on defense to the dive, two fumbles inside the 5, and a failure to convert the fake FG to a TD
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Except for mismatches, the reasons you stated are why all teams lose games. The first 2 can be corrected or at least kept to a minimum and the last is simply probability that affects all teams the same over time.
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Gurkha, I totally agree. I guess my point was that coaches make mistakes in judgment in every game and players don’t get themselves ready to play (or don’t execute the game plan). Most of the time those mistakes don’t directly contribute to the loss, but in our 3 last year, every one of them came at a critical juncture of the game and changed the complexion of the game.
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I agree that all of those could have changed the games and yes the season, but I am also sure other teams can point to items just like that and make the same claim. At some point a championship team has to rise above these types of issues.
I will blame the lack of an IPF, until it is finished. The two practices a year the team misses is all the difference.
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Couldn’t agree more – teams have to rise above those and win anyway.
Using the tech game as the microcosm, the defense had plenty of chances after those fumbles to stop them and get the ball back for the offense in good field position. While the fumbles changed the complexion of the game (it could have been 21-3 in the first half instead of 7-3), the defense didn’t pick the offense up after those mistakes.
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The defense gave up 24 points in regulation in spite of getting run over for 400+ yards rushing, not exactly an insurmountable number of points. The offense was the unit that continued to shoot itself in the foot. We had the lead with 18 seconds to play, coach decides to pooch kick to a team that hadn’t returned a kickoff more than 11 yards all day and give them a short field to get in position to kick a tying field goal. Even though it wasn’t a thing of beauty, the team did what they needed to do to take the lead and be in position to win the game. A poor coaching decision cost the game.
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The tech game was an aggregation of mistakes, poor play, and coaching. The pooch kick and its aftermath were the culmination of all of those issues. If you look at that game objectively, we should have never been in the situation where we had to win the game at the end. We coached terribly, played terribly, and made some killer mistakes on the sidelines and between the white lines.
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The horse has been dead.
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+1 🙂
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If only JC and Skeptic would get that memo…
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Sure but there are Fourteen Ways to Beat a Dead Horse and we’re only only up to number two on the countdown
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Glad we are beating a dead horse and not skinning cats, there are 100 different ways to do that?
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Damn, DIF. You really understand how to get things done now in America. You should run for President!…..Wait….You’re already doing that, aren’t you Jeb? I guess you learned all that when you were Governor.
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Whoa Senator…hold on. Can you be called a “troll” on your own blog? Your take (players and coaches both, have to quit whiffing) sounds like a realist perspective,…errr….I mean blasphemy!
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This line of thinking amuses me. Where in the hell do you guys ever get that the Senator is above criticizing the program, coaches, players?
He just doesn’t appreciate the posters that come on here to just whine and bitch about the program while posting the same, boring talking points on every single topic. It gets quite boring when they turn every topic into a referendum on the program / Richt.
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Is it somehow less boring that people come here and whistle “zip-e-dee-doo-da” out of their assholes talking about how great everything is and the only reason Georgia doesn’t have multiple championships of many different kinds is because of the refs, the NCAA, the AD, ESPN, bad luck, etc? It’s not only boring, it’s maddening to see the statistics that show how “great” the program is, yet the reality of not winning anything of value is completely ignored.
The horse is alive and well as long as there are deniers and enablers who refuse to acknowledge reality. The coach worshipers take the view that in this season’s Florida game “Georgia came in second and Florida came in next to last, WOO HOO!!!, WE’RE GREAT!”..
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To answer your question… generally, yes, those people are less boring because as a group they’re not as monomaniacal as the “realists” are as a group. There are exceptions to the rule, of course, but I find the people who want to push the negative tend to be far more strident about it and are less willing to engage in discussions about other topics than their optimistic counterparts.
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Oh yeah! It’s on now!
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The Senator summed it up, but yes – I do find it to be much more boring. Full disclosure – I don’t particularly care for either point of view, but the negatives ones seem to be the ones that push their agenda on every topic and bring nothing substantive to the conversation other than repeating the same negative talking point every time. Discussing the exact same point ad nauseam on a blog would be my direct definition of a boring blog, but YMMV.
Here’s a question for you. Is there a single topic on this blog that you have ever posted on where you didn’t reference directly to your down opinion on the program / Richt regardless of the topic of the post? I suspect there isn’t and that’s my point.
Why do you feel like talking about UGA football is such a binary topic (i.e. you’re either a realist or a “coach worshiper”)? I assure you that most of us fall somewhere in the middle and readily admit there are plenty of self-inflicted errors over the last 15 years, but we also like to discuss externalities as well that you dismiss as happy talk.
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To answer your question in the second paragraph; yes, if you care to look back you will find I have many positive things to say about players and the program. I’m not nearly as worried about the qb situation as many are, I think Bauta is the best option and I think he will be really good. So good, in fact, that I think Eason may have a hard time winning the starting job (I think that’s a good thing, by the way, a red shirt year for Eason would be great in my opinion). I love our offensive line play and our recruiting at that position. I like what Pruitt has done with the defense. I think this season will be a big improvement over last if he can solve the run defense issue and I have confidence he can. Of course I think we are stacked at running back and I think Chubb could go down as a better back than Gurley. All in all, I think we have plenty of talent and Richt is a decent coach.
I don’t really think it’s a binary situation. If I am responding to a post that I find incorrect, I guess it would sound that way. When EE pinned the blame for the tech loss on the defense’s not giving the offense the ball enough, I couldn’t let that go. I agree that most people fall somewhere in the middle and those people are generally willing to admit Richt has some shortcomings and, therefore, qualify as realists. There are others, and you know who they are, who refuse to acknowledge any shortcomings of the program and/or Richt and find absurd excuses to blame for losses that are blatantly obvious coaching screw ups.
Every team is going to lose some games, no team is undefeated for their entire history. Sometimes the other team is simply better, sometimes the other coach does a better job of preparing or calling a game, sometimes a coach makes a bonehead call and it costs a team a game, I have no problem accepting that all of these things happen. When the same sort of things happen over and over for years, I don’t see a problem with pointing it out. When someone else wants to deny reality, I have a problem with that.
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Like DawgPhan, I don’t see these “reality denying” fans like you are labeling, but it does seem to me like you slap this label on anyone who points out factors that lead to a loss other than Richts coaching. Sometimes it is his coaching. Sometimes its his coaching and other factors.
I know waving the banner of true reality can be a burden on this blog, but let me help you with that burden by pointing out that you are literally the hundredth person to scream and shout for Richt’s head using these exact talking points. We get it. Trust me.
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Once again, you cherry pick the words. The fumbles were caused by the offense. The failures to stop the option were the defense, in particular, Pruitt’s failure to make adjustments. The coaching decisions at critical times were poor particularly at the end of the game. It was a TEAM loss, nothing more, nothing less.
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Maybe I just expect too much for $333,333.00 a month?
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I don’t think you expect too much. What I do think is that you give everyone else the credit for every win and then place the blame for every loss on the guy who makes $333,333 per month. I’m saying that the team (coaches and players) win and lose together. Coaches make mistakes, and sometimes players overcome them. Coaches make the right call, and then a player blows an assignment or commits a penalty. Coaches make the right call, players execute, and the other team makes a great play or bad luck occurs (blown call or something similar). It’s football and no matter how much money you’re paid, there are too many variables to control where you get the optimal outcome every time.
I think the program is headed in the right direction. I didn’t think that in 2008-10. Obviously, you don’t agree. I’ll admit I’m not a championship or bust kind of fan. I get frustrated when the team doesn’t play well or the coaches make mistakes as my wife will tell you. I’m happy for the team when they win. I do believe I’m a realist in that I don’t expect to win every game but I do expect the team to lay it all on the line 12-15 times per year. While the 3 losses had head-scratching elements to each, the only one that still chaps my @$$ today is the WLOCP. We should have beaten the Gators senseless but didn’t because we didn’t take the game seriously. I pin that one squarely on the shoulders of the staff and the guy at the top. The other 2 were team losses where I can say that the team fought to the last whistle and came up short.
If you want to see my full thoughts on the tech game from last year, go over to Bulldawg Illustrated and read it. I’m on a mobile device right now and can’t paste the link in.
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We’re not that far apart in our thinking. I guess I just don’t buy into the idea that Richt is a “great” coach. I think he’s good and can do a “great” job when he wants to, Missouri last year was a great job as was Auburn, but I think he’s a little lazy and maybe not really as smart as some people think he is. I think he gets rattled at times in stressful situations in spite of his calm exterior. I’ve seen a lot of the same mistakes over the last 14 years so it doesn’t seem that he is learning from his mistakes.
I guess I’m not very forgiving when a guy is making $4 million a year. If Richt were a coach at a small college who also taught some classes and received a small salary as head football coach, his continued bonehead calls would be easily excused compared to the totality of his body of work. Richt is paid like the CEO of a fairly large corporation, the standard is much higher for him.
I don’t hate him and I don’t expect him to be fired, I think he should have been fired after the 2010 season, but that’s neither here nor there. He’s not going anywhere until he’s ready to leave. Again, I hope the blind squirrel finds the nut and he can get a championship of some kind. Maybe then, he’ll feel like he can move on to full time ministry or something and maybe the BM crowd will make a good hire, unfortunately, history doesn’t support that happening.
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It’s just weird that you dont “buy in” to the idea that he is a great coach when he has won more SEC games in the last 3 years than any team not call Alabama. So the 2nd best coach in the SEC over the last 3 years isnt great?
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Pretty simple DP. CMR is a good coach and would be a great coach if he didn’t choke at the end of big games. He does an awful lot of things right. But this clock mismanagement/bonehead call thing at the end that loses games has got to stop. I remember the 2001 Auburn-Georgia game and how he let the last 30 seconds of the clock run out with the Dawgs at the Auburn 1–only got 1 play off. You would think by now he would have learned, after all he has been a HC for 14 years, but he hasn’t. The thing is, if he just could have find a way to have NOT made those stupid mistakes he probably would be considered the best coach in the nation and likely would have had at least 2 national championships (’07 and ’12) under his belt, plus several SEC championships.
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Hey JC, I think the point is that it seems whatever the topic, you can somehow bring up your opinion on CMR. We all get it. I realize we can have different opinions on whether he is the right Coach or not, etc, and understand your point of view. For god sakes you have expressed it enough, over and over. That’s just it. If the topic raised by the Senator’s post does not deal with those issues, just give them a rest. Do not mean to offend you but just as a way for me to attempt to explain what I perceive some around here get tired of. Carry on brother. How long again until kickoff?
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Red, you need to reread the Senator’s post and his other comments on this thread. The topic of the post by the Senator deals EXACTLY with those issues.
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Does every. Single. One?
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The weird part to me is that I dont think I could name a single person on this blog that is constantly positive in the way described above. I could name several that seem to be happiest when running down the program.
Of course JCDAWG thinks I am the former and MacallanLover thinks I am the latter….so maybe I dont know either.
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Whenever I’m feeling conflicted, I give myself a daily dose of affirmation
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Aw dammit – scratch that second paragraph. I meant to delete that out before hitting Post Comment. Hopefully one day WordPress will provide editing ability on comments.
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Look if last year was the only year we shot ourselves in the foot it could be an exception but it wasn’t. We are the masters of the head scratching F’up game. Now granted it has usually in the distant past been UF but we have lost to UT even Vandy on occasion. UGA has had one ah sh*t game in them for as many of my 68 years I can remember except for 1980.
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What’s this “we” shit? The only guy around right now calling for pooch kick-offs and timeouts to let the other team, when they were out of time outs, more easily line up for and make a tying FG, thereby getting into OT and ultimately losing the game, has a corner office in B-M and is being paid $4 Mil per year to not make screw-ups like that. Hell, if that happened at my office during a trial and we lost I’d fire the SOB who did it. But in the world of the “Georgia Way” there is no accountability–there is only, “Gee, that was bad luck.”
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’69, I’ve been around almost as long as you, and I think we had a couple of sh*t games in 1980, we were just lucky as h@ll that year
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This is why i think the playoff is a net positive for Georgia. I know it’s been repeated ad nauseam but the fact is we’re good for at least a couple losses including at least one infuriating one every. Single. Year. As evidenced by the fact that in Richt ‘s tenure we’ve only had one season where we had one loss or fewer after the sec championship game. that was more or less the bar you had to pass to have a realistic shot to play in the bcsnc game (a 2 team playoff) hence why we never played in one. Now that the field has been expanded to 4 it’s pretty safe to assume a 2 loss team will be 1 of the 4 most years thus somewhat mitigating our penchant for shooting ourselves in the foot.
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A 2 loss team might get in the playoff, but only if there are no other champions from a power 5 conference with fewer than 2 losses. Last season, if Missouri had lost a game and Georgia had won the SEC championship, the committee would not have let Georgia play in the playoff with 3 losses, or even 2. No team that loses to two opponents who would not be bowl eligible without beating that team is going to get into the playoffs. Georgia having 3 losses in the regular season would have ensured they did not make the playoff. SEC champion is not an automatic playoff position. If Georgia had won the SEC last season, TCU or Baylor would have taken Bama’s spot in the playoff.
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I blame Fracking.
And the wind in the moon that moved Armstong’s flag.
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Hell, that was filmed on a Hollywood set. Everybody knows that.
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No, it was filmed in the Nevada desert. The internet says so. ; )
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My comment on your post Senator focuses in on the statement about wishing that the dawgs would quit whiffing at the most inopportune times and play in a manner consistent with the sum of their parts….a very legitimate desire but I would remind the whippersnappers that I remember going to Jacksonville, during that prolonged losing streak,knowing that there was not a way in hell we beat the Gaturds because we didn’t have the talent. It wasn’t going to happen because the sum of our parts was 50% less than UF’s. We just forget that getting the talent to UGA is a part of the job that Coach Richt does as well as anyone who has ever coached the Dawgs. I’m not sure that I’ve gone to any games in recent memory where I didn’t think we had a chance but I absolutely remember going to games during the Goff/Donnan era when I knew we were going to lose and that we still lost more games that we were not suppose to lose. I like having a team with lots of good parts it beats not having them and they(the recruits) don’t just show up. Someone recruits them but apparently whoever that someone is gets little or no credit for doing so. JC needs to keep playing his NCAA football on Playstation where he wins every game.
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You make a very good point. We have the talent to win every game and that certainly is an improvement. I never feel like the Dawgs are over-matched whoever the Dawgs play. Take Bama, for example. I feel like Georgia can play with Bama and win. The 2012 SECCG showed that. The talent in Athens matches up well with the Bama talent IMHO. But that is a 2-edged sword. If the Georgia talent is equal to the Tide talent or the Buckeye talent, how come we don’t get Tide or Buckeye results? If the talent is there (and I agree it is) then the problem must be something else. Pray tell what could that be? (Pooch kick-off; only getting 1 play off in last 30 seconds from inside opponents 10 and clock runs out; not having the team ready to play at least 1 game every year). Ahhh, it’s just bad luck…..Right?
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I understand making the perfect the enemy of the good is always easy to do but it is a logical error. Luck does play a part . Please tell me you remember how stunningly lucky we were in 1980. Lucky to win USC, Clemson, Florida and the Irish games. My real position on this meme is making a change and hoping for a better result is stunningly unlikely to occur (he is the winning-est Coach we’ve ever had) and I do not want my Alma mater represented by Nick Saban or Urban Meyers anymore than I liked having it represented by Ray Goff.”Hope and Change” will not work any better for UGA than it has for our economy.
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