Why does seemingly every advanced stats projection of the 2015 season favor Georgia more than we do?
- Bloviation for the Dawgnation
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“We remember the Sugar Bowl, I think it my junior year of high school, we let Alabama beat us twice,” Brinson said of a team that also lost to the Crimson Tide in the SEC Championship game. “We’re not letting Alabama beat us twice. In the Sugar Bowl in 2018, they… thought they should have been in the playoffs and lost to Texas.” -- AB-H, 12/27/23
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Get The Picture · Bloviation for the Dawgnation
Get The Picture 
We Munson everything. The schedule is too tough. We’re going to have a brain cramp or a face plant. At some point, the Curschel (I liked that from yesterday) is going to jump up and bite us. Inexperience at key positions is going to cost us a game or two. I could keep going on, but the crux of the matter is we’re Georgia fans – pessimistic is what we are.
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YUP!
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Don’t forget Dooley. Between Vince and Larry we were lucky if we were favored against the Little Sisters of the Poor. They have an all-american long snapper!
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Snakebit! is what we are.
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Because we’re Georgia fans. We’re in a perpetual Charlie Brown state of mind, in which we know full well that at any minute, Lucy is going to yank that football away from us just as we go to kick it.
For better or for worse, computers don’t account for such things as a team’s history coming up short, perceived bad luck, freak plays the other guy made, or horrible calls by officials.
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I don’t think we are going to get biased officiating any more. Penn Wagers and Matt Moore got runn-offt and I really think their biased officiating against Georgia had a lot to do with it. Officials who vent their spleens with flags against the Dawgs (and really against any other SEC team) run the risk of being shown the door under the new world order, IMHO.
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Well, if you look at the chart at the end, he’s got UGA down for 9.5 wins, which seems about right, don’t you think?
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I actually think 10 is about right. If the ball bounces our way, 11-2 (or 3) seems like a reasonable expectation.
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Yeah, in regards to the Senator’s question, the projection is not really any higher than my expectation. I’m thinking it oughtta be about 10, but worried about 8.
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Because, whether it is rational or not, a large percentage of Georgia fans fully expect the sky to fall every year. I haven’t expected us to do better than 8-4 or 9-3 in years. That expectation isn’t based off of anything other than the feeling, “We’re Georgia, we just can’t ever put it all together, and/or catch the breaks we need.”
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Because we root for Faceplant U.
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Because it’s so rare that all of Georgia’s best stats-producing players make it to the field on game day.
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The stats don’t generate themselves.
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Agree. Difficult to generate those expected stats if your best players were standing on the sideline due to suspension, injury, or fatigue. 😉
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Two things about this:
1-Mark Richt is the head coach and has cost UGA at least one game each year.
2-This modeling projection cannot predict injuries and UGA has had a rash of them the last 2 years. If Gurley doesn’t get hurt last year they go 11-1, they would’ve beaten Florida and GT.
Having said that, if we get some breaks like a full year from Malcolm Mitchell and JSW and Godwin, Trent Thompson, Ledbetter, Roquan and Patrick can play immediately and Chubb, Marshall and Michel stay healthy, it could be a big year.
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We could’ve easily gone 11-1, even without TG3. Our young defense cost us vs USCe. We almost overcame a poor performance and a couple of painful turnovers vs GT, but snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by playing not to lose after taking the lead. The end of that game haunts me….
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I didn’t realize that the coaches had planned on using Gurley to stop the run against UF and GT last year
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+1
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He could have made a big enough difference in time of possession to limit the Gator’s offensive time on the field. You cannot seperate the defense and offense as if they are two seperate games. The fumbles in the GT game (by the offense) put the defense behind the 8 ball.
Gurley would have made the difference…by a good deal..IMHO.
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eye test FTW. duh.
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Georgia fans know there will be at least one bonehead coaching caused loss, at least one face plant loss, and one bad luck/ref inexplicable loss every season. Those have to be added to the losses to teams that are simply better than we are. That’s why everyone else thinks we’ll do better than we think we will. In short, we’ve seen this show before, we know how it ends.
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It’s because to Dawg fans the ball is quite heavy considering the loss SC and the bugs in 2014. LOL.
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“is”——> should be
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We have been beaten down over the years. How many UGA fans expect an undefeated season? An SEC championship? We base our expectations on past performances, while the pundits look at talent, potential, etc. We are realists with litanies of excuses, while they are disinterested third party observers.
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I wonder if most of us know how much of a disadvantage Mark Rich has been dealing with during his tenure? He has had to deal with the Jan Kemp effect on the football program along with an administration that didn’t support the football program. Until Adams was replaced Georgia couldn’t hire quality coaches because of pay. Look at Bobo, $500,000 vs $1.2 million for our new coach. Last in the SEC to get an indoor practice facility. This year, the doubling of money for recruitment plus eight new coaches to aid the process. I frankly think that Rick has done a good job with what he’s had. Second issue for Georgia fans is the disadvantage and proximity of Tenn, SC, Clemson, Florida, Auburn, Mississippi,Mississippi State, Alabama, Florida State and Georgia Tech. All of these schools are recruiting in Georgia everyday of the year. The uniqueness of what Georgia faces year in and year out has no equal. Maybe Texas colleges and possibly Florida come to mind but still not in the magnitude of Georgia, every one of these schools want a piece of the Bulldogs, they consider us there rivalries. Their rosters are loaded with Georgia players all wanting to pound the dogs. I don’t think these are excuses but just facts. Going forward, I believe we will see better things from Georgia football but just like last year in the SEC, we’re all beating each other up to a point that it is a huge disadvantage in this new playoff world we find ourselves in.
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Cry me a river. That Jan Kemp crutch broke years ago. We are recruiting the exact same players Bama, AU, SC, UT, FSU, Florida, etc are recruiting, we’re not passing on recruits because of some sort of noble, higher academic standards than our rivals. That excuse held some water in the Goff years but Donnan got a lot of things changed when he came The whining about our rivals recruiting in Georgia is absurd. Do you want to change places with one of the SC or AL schools or UT? Those schools are in states with less than half of Georgia’s population and have two legitimate football programs in each state. The state of Tennessee has very little in the way of home grown top football talent, UT has no choice but to recruit Georgia. The state of Georgia is going to produce 50-100 good recruits every year, we can’t sign them all if we wanted to. Also, not every player on our roster is from Georgia, we are recruiting other states as well, is that unfair to those state’s schools? Lack of talent has never been Richt’s problem.
There may be some validity to the coach salary/budget criticism, but it’s not like we have been winning championships WITH Bobo and he’s supposed to be a great OC. Our fans have been talking about how good our coaches were for years, suddenly, they’re not good because we couldn’t afford good coaches? If you want to be mad about the salaries, save your anger for Adams, direct it at Dooley, Evans, McGarity, and all the BM crowd they are the ones who controlled the paychecks.
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My point about all of these SEC schools recruiting Georgia Has nothing to do with how many they sign year to year, it’s a given there going to get talent from Georgia. My thoughts are that these Georgia boys playing for Tenn and SC, Auburn, GT, Clemson, Fla all look at Georgia as a rivalry game. The point I was making about the money and salary’s was not about our past coaches even though they were under paid, it was to point out that for the first time I’m aware of the university is spending the money to make us a better program, I’m proud of that and I believe it will pay off going forward.
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You made valid points, some just don’t want to face reality when it stares them in the face because it doesn’t fit the mistaken conclusion thy are have hung their hat on.
UGA has never had the top talent level in the SEC, never. Rankings prove that, and are a matter of record.
No other school in the SEC has as many Top programs to attack Georgia talent within the drive time of our home state. This is also a matter of record. Our depth is talent is diminished by geography and access. Florida may have more D1 talent but how many top programs are within a 3-5 drive of Gainesville, much less athletes in South Florida.
UGA does not have the applied resources to work with that other top SEC programs have. We aren’t shabby, but we aren’t at the top.
UGA has the most rigorous policy on drinking and alcohol in the conference, and has never delayed a suspension for a behavioral incident.
We do well, looks like we are positioned to do better, but facing facts isn’t the forte of this group….exposes their narrative.
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You have to look pretty hard to find a recruiting disadvantage at UGA. ATL an hour from campus? The only major in-state school? Wow. That is candy for the taking.
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never understood the ‘recruiting disadvantage’ whine. annually in the top 10. can only sign so many players. lack of talent? – not an issue at UGA. try again.
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bbdog is not talking recruiting disadvantage he is talking about how the dawgs face fired up teams almost every week. SC,Auburn,,Clemson ,Tenn,Ky are all littered with Georgia kids who want to prove to UGA that they made a mistake by not offering them a ride. Look at Auburn roster and understand everyone of those kids has a Tom Brady sized chip on their shoulder and wants to make UGA regret not tendering an offer. Ya’ll are talking past each other.
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Uh am I missing something that the other commenters aren’t? 9.5 wins sounds pretty accurate. A 10-2 regular season would be wellwithin a typical Georgia season. Good even if not spectacular.
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By my unofficial tally, there are far more glass half full people on these boards than glass half empties.
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We’ve come to see the annual face plant as something exclusive to us, but really it happens to most teams, its just a symptom of having 120something teams. We usually start the season with trepidation, but somehow look back thinking we should have won every game… like most teams do. It really doesn’t make sense. Its really one maaaaybe two games where the loss defies all logic. The rest were just competitive games where we as fans underestimated the opponent.
But last year might be the first in a while that we weren’t wrong – we were worried at the beginning of the year, but we really should have won every game on the schedule. We had no business losing any of those games. So this time the stats really do say, objectively in hindsight, we were awesome and shouldn’t have lost a single game on the schedule. So looking forward the computers seem to be saying if even a just competent QB emerges we have no business not kicking ass. We’re more worried about QB than they are or they wouldn’t be saying what they do.
We look at last year and see mere competence at QB not getting it done, but it should have gotten it done and it probably ought to this season. Most fans don’t really notice it because we’re used to at least one game per year, but really, 3 inexplicable losses in one season and the fact that they were the only losses all season is a pretty incredible statistical anomaly.
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“We’ve come to see the annual face plant as something exclusive to us, but really it happens to most teams, its just a symptom of having 120something teams.”
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
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Your last sentence (especially the last 3 words) is spot on, and why last year was so frustrating to many.
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Agree with this, we might get more wins from less talent this year.
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It also seems that no one ever considers looking at last season from the other side. Could it be possible that our early season concerns were legitimate? That our Defense truly over-performed for the most part of last season and the youth caused a few hiccups which is to be expected when you start that many inexperienced frosh, sophs? The only anomaly of a loss to me was USCe… and since Spurrier is running that boat… it almost takes that one out of the picture. The common factor between UF and GT was that our running game was shut down by those two D’s in the 2nd half while they were able to run at us at will. Thats not a freak loss, thats getting your ass beat straight up on the field. Like those who said above, if one of the QBs can step up and prove to be competent and protect the ball, and our Defense can figure out how to stop the power running game… 10-11 wins is far from out of the question
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Right on MGW, happens everywhere most every single year. Takes a lot of things to line up just right, especially in this league….let alone those we never interact with.
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I see 10 as very doable myself. I let others wallow in sorrow.
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Simple….History
plus Stats don’t win games
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We overly discount this year’s team because we don’t have a starting QB. But who does outside of OSU?
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We are good at not giving our team/coach any credit thus the low expectations. We also don’t give our opponents much credit either thus the extreme frustration when we lose to teams that we think we should never lose to. We don’t respect anybody but Bama, including ourselves.
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In my case, because I just watched a statistically dominant Georgia team blow three games it shouldn’t have. I fully expect something similar to happen this year, even though there’s really no reason they shouldn’t win the East if Ramsey is even halfway competent.
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There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
So, while I believe the model as putting UGA’s ceiling at #3 (and thus a playoff spot), I also know UGA is more than capable of finding a way to finish 3rd in the SEC East with the numbers that would achieve the loftier outcome.
I want to believe.
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What you believe you can achieve! While there have been games that were unnecessarily lost in past seasons, like last year, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the Dawgs will face plant or lose by coaching error or bad ref call this year. We have also won games where we pulled the rabbit out of the hat from time to time. One never knows which year will produce that blessed string of games where all falls in place for the Dawgs. I understand, and really appreciate, our Munson/Dooley mindset having been a Dawg alum for over 40 years, but deep down, don’t we all believe that this team, if given competent quarterback play, can have an excellent season. I am grateful that we are picked to be in the hunt, and expect great things from this year’s Georgia Bulldogs!
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Unfortunately, the statistics tell us that we have been winning far fewer of those “rabbit out of the hat…” games than we used to and are losing many more games we are favored in the past 7 seasons. I think almost everyone believed we would win a NC each season from ’01 until ’08. Then, the face planting and inexplicable losses became regular features.
I think experience is the reason we expect less from the team than the pundits do. They base their predictions on objective analysis of cold, hard data. We base ours on actual results we have seen on the field.
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+1000 JC
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History. This seems appropriate for UGA football….
Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.
Aaron Levenstein
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I wish I could be as sure of anything as some of the pundits are about everything. We have good coaches in place, good talent on hand and in good numbers, and we seem to have some emerging leaders among the upperclassmen. Great success for UGA seems to me to the the ability to steer a middle course between great execution and great game management–the golden mean. But it’s not a precise midway point; rather, it’s a shifting point that sometimes ends up closer to execution, sometimes closer to game management. That midpoint has eluded us when we’ve least expected it, and it’s been a recurring issue, to our great frustration. I just hope our coaches and players can find that golden mean and hang on like crazy. And I believe this time around they will. Finally.
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‘Cause some of us were actually present in Jacksonville Florida on Nov. 1, 2014. And in Knoxville Tennessee on Oct. 6, 2007. And in Nashville Tennessee on Oct. 19, 2013. And in Sanford Stadium on Oct. 12, 2013. I could go on. We know there’s always a warm pile of stuff to step in at least once a season.
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Personally, I’m skeptical of a 9.5 win season because the Dawgs major flaw is a MAJOR flaw. Having a first year QB is a huge problem. How many turnovers did Stafford and Murray have their first years….answer….more than any other year of their impressive careers. When we lose the few games we actually do lose this season it will be because ,statistically speaking, a first QB can be counted on to have a brain cramp that will effect the outcome of a game. It will not be because of the failure of our coaches to headbutt the players ,the lack of a IPF or because we called a play that the 15%er’s could see was an awful call before it was run. It will be because an inexperience QB will hold on to the ball 1 second too long or his failure to read a safety over the top. We are lacking in both depth and talent at both Defensive back and wide receiver and injuries at either of these positions could be devastating. QB is a big deal. A great QB doesn’t guarantee anything but a bad one is a legitimate cause for concern. As great as our tailback situation is and even having one our better O-lines will not stop the Bama ,Mizzou and Gator defenses from loading the box and forcing us to pass. It worked for GT.
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They did the same thing last season, tried to take away the running game and force Mason to throw deep. We didn’t lose a single game because of a lack of a passing game.
If teams stack the box, play action passes to the tight ends and slants to wide receivers will kill them. As long as Schotty and Richt don’t ask the qb to do too much and we get good OL play, our offense should be fine.
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I’d take it a step further. You simply can’t replace one of your two Heisman candidates (Gurley), a 5th year QB, a senior center, two dependable senior wide receivers and your “franchise” OC without some hiccups on offense.
Thinking our offense is just going to pick up where Bobo et al above left off is discounting the impact all those guys had.
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Well….let me be the first and possibly only person on this blog to say this. I think if Georgia gets past Bama the Dawgs will go 12-0 in the regular season this year.
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I’d love it, but I don’t see it happening. You are completely discounting our recent history and tendencies. We will have at least one game where the coach blows it, one face plant game and one game where the other team simply outplays us. Anything less than 4 regular season losses this season will be a success to me.
I don’t see much chance of us winning all of SC, Bama, UT, Missouri, UF, AU and tech. Heck, the Vandy game might not be a gimme. We have eight legitimate opportunities to lose, I don’t see us winning all of them. I’d love it, but I don’t see it happening.
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I totally agree JC. Some on here would say that you’re being a ” troll”. Recent history says you’re spot on. If there was a championship given for excuse making, then UGA would be in the dynasty right now.
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“in the midst of a dynasty” is what I meant……….geeze
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I want to go 11-1 regular season ,losing to Bama at home and than beat them in the SECCG. Hell, come think of it I don’t care what the record is,just win the East and let the chips fall where they may. I think it was Dooley who use to preach just win the conference and everything else will take care of itself. Control what you can control and don’t worry about the rest.
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It could happen Mayor, but it is a huge long shot….it is a significant long shot that anyone in the SEC is capable of that. My bet is the SEC champ will have 2 losses.
Other than ohio due to the schedule, and possibly one team in the Big 12, no Power 5 conference team has much chance at an undefeated regular season (you can make a case for an ACC team for the same reason as ohio, but I wouldn’t bet it at 10-1.) With all the factors involved, going undefeated requires a lot of pieces, many of which you don’t control, to fall your way. But like you, I am not conceding any game at this point and am not sure we cannot play anyone on our schedule with a 50% plus chance of beating them. 10-2 would be an excellent year, and get us to Atlanta with a chance to win a title. 9-3 seems just as likely though so the 9.5 over/under seems about right.
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