If you’re bored, click here for a little fun, if you’re into analytics. It’s a link to a preseason analytics and predictions e-guide produced by McIllece Sports. What’s McIllece Sports, you ask? For the last two seasons, the site has finished second in the Stassen Poll, which tracks preseason college football predictions.
Anyway, it’s free and you’ve got nothing better to do than wade through it, right?
If you want to go straight to the punch line, head to page 118 for their preseason outlook on Georgia. You’ll find it’s not particularly optimistic: game by game, it works out to 8-4 overall and 4-4 in the conference, good for third in the East. Losses are projected against Ole Miss, Tennessee, Florida and Auburn. Note that the latter two are by the narrowest of probability margins, and that their overall odds actually favor a 9-3 record (which at this point feels right to me) slightly over 8-4.
Get The Picture 
9-3.
We will not lose to Bootch Please at home. No way…no how.
Both Sony and Mr. Chubb will play. And play well. Douglas will have a few heart breaker runs that make a highlight film.
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Thanks. I’ll have a cigarette now.
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This sounds like a solid predictive model but there is no way we lose to every good team we play. I think it much more likely that we beat a couple decent teams and pull a freshman Coach lose or two along the course of the season and still end up 8-4. If this is all we can generate with this sister’s of the poor schedule we’re heading down the UT/Michigan glide path . I thought we’re paying for improvement not the same old same old…no championships ….no peace. McGarity better pray we’re not 8-4 or I know some 60 year old men that might egg his house.
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“…there is no way we lose to every good team we play.”
last year
The optimist in me hopes that you’re saying that it can’t happen two years in a row. My inner realist says that anything can happen. Ask Bama vs. Ole Miss last year. Or Ole Miss vs. Ark last year. Too many ways for the ball to bounce. But I hope that you’re right.
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LOL…
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Yeah, ok. Going by memory, last season would have been 8-4 if not for approx. 14 points spread out over 3 games. Razor thin margins when consideration is given to roster match ups and established coaching trends. It’s easy to predict anything from 8-4 and 10-2 and sound perfectly reasonable – with any sec solid sec team.
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Baffled by the ranking of UT as number one. Really hard to imagine they will be the best team in the country but that’s how I read the rankings.
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^^ This. Bootch! has won exactly one game of importance and that was because Richt blew a 21 point lead. I can understand picking them to win the Division… but #1 FFS?
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Was it Mark Richt who dropped an easy TD? I can’t remember.
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Or fumbled a kickoff? Or didn’t tackle in the 2nd half?
The 2nd half of that game was a combination of the problems we had all year. The offense went stagnant, the defense lost its physical edge, and the coaches and team played not to lose.
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NO coach makes a play. They get their team ready to play for 60 minutes. Not 45, not 30, not 15, but 60. When coaches win, they get the credit, but they didn’t make any plays then, either, so when they lose, they get the blame. That’s actually pretty fair. Especially when the team blows a 21 point lead.
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I would suggest the entire team should get the credit and the blame. It does seem that to a segment of our fan base for the last 7 years, the players win games in spite of the coaches and the coaches lose games regardless of the performance of the players. I don’t blame the coaches when the QB throws an interception right into coverage (I guarantee Richt & Bobo didn’t tell the Ginger Ninja to throw that Coxian Pick 6 in ’09). I don’t blame the players when the coaches fail to make adjustments to what a team is doing (see tech in 2014 when Pruitt made zero adjustments to stop the off-tackle dive option).
You’re right the coaches’ job is to prepare, to motivate and to adjust. The players’ job is to execute on the next play. I think you could probably say that’s the Process in a nutshell. When they are working in tandem with 4 and 5 star talent across the board, it’s a beautiful thing to watch. I hope Kirby brings that to Athens.
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8-4? I can hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth now. The excellence demanders will probably fire Bobo again. Personally, I’m more optimistic than 8-4, and even if it ends up there (or worse), a lot will depend on HOW it got there (injuries? bad calls? fluke bounces?), but I imagine there are a lot of people who will turn on KS pretty quickly.
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Possibly, but I see the honeymoon for KS lasting longer than that. If he doesn’t respond to adversity well, then people will turn on him. But I think he’s too smart to be as stubborn as CMR was about a lot of things.
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NM, I’m not sure I agree with your premise about the honeymoon. A face plant in Jacksonville will bring out the same people. If Kirby responds to adversity like Richt did early in his career, he can hold people off. If he responds like Donnan, the honeymoon will be over very quickly.
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JD went 2-2 versus UT, Florida, AU and Tech his first year. Wasn’t that the best he ever did against that group? And, that was at a time when Fat Phil was owning us, Spurrier was owning us, AU was pretty much owning us, and then, all of a sudden, the last 3 years of his tenure, TECH was owning us.
2-2 isn’t gonna get it when you consider the own has been on the other foot the against UT, AU and Tech (at historic levels versus the last 2 the last 10 years, right?) and slightly less than even versus Florida. KS has his work cut out for him. He might get by with 2-2 once, or every so often, but I would be surprised if the masses reacted patiently to Butch and Gus starting to own us, for example.
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81, I agree with you. Kirby has a tough job ahead of him. I expect that he builds on the success we’ve had the last 15 years against the Barn, the Hillbillies and tech and to turn the tables completely on UF.
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8-4 is disappointing but not catastrophic. As long as we look competitive in our losses.
I think 9-3 or 10-2 would be a damn good year regardless of whether we reach the SECCG. When is September gonna get here already???
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And the McIllese (How do you pronounce THAT?) website is blocked by my company’s network. Cry, cry.
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9-3 is where I am right now, but one of those 9 needs to be in Jacksonville for me to believe this season was a success. 9-3 with a loss to Florida will absolutely leave a bad taste in my mouth like when you end up with coffee grounds in your morning brew.
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Why, pray tell, is Auburn again getting the preseason love, again?
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Because they have the best DL coach in the world.
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Because Jeremy Johnson is going to win the Heisman and Gus Malzahn is the best offensive mind, evah!
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pretty sure JJ already has a couple pre-season Heismans in hand.
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That’s some excellent gallows humor, WDE. Well played.
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I’d consider 8-4 a huge disappointment for several reasons.
– First and foremost, it would be hard to get a much more favorable schedule. The opponents in our two biggest games have huge games the prior week (2 examples: ut vs fu & ole miss vs bama). We’re at home for ut, gtu and aubie, and in the GA dome for unc.
– There’s really no rising power in the sec east. ut gets all the love. But with the exception of their DC change, they return pretty much the same team that lost 4 games last year. Most people would agree fu had a better team last year. mizzou, scu, kentuck and vandy will need major upsets along the line for anyone to take them seriously.
– No one speaks about any player at UGA having a breakout year, yet we have several 4 and 5 star kids who can emerge: Thompson, LoCarter, RoSmith, Patrick, Godwin, Eason, Hardeman, etc. Not to mention players like Chubb, Michel and Imac who can change a game in an instant.
– This is simply a better overall coaching staff than last year, with more experienced position coaches and more resources (i.e. assistants).
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my guess is that we have more than a couple guys really have career years this season. Mostly just a fresh set of eyes and coaches really getting after it in their first year at a new place.
I dont think it is crazy to assume that most of the coaches are working a little harder this year at a new big job than they did last year, same with the players.
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8-4 seems like a bad season. Especially if it means 1-3 against our rivals.
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Yeah, but context is King. A first year HC going 4-4 in conference is disappointing but would not be shocking at all. Now, if he didn’t improve on that his second and third years…..
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meh. eyeroll.
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I admit I don’t get this attitude. Great recruiting class. Plenty of returning talent. Based on what I recall the habitual complaint against the previous staff was (underachieved with the high level of talent available, didn’t develop talent available), how is going backwards with “better coaching, better organization, better top to bottom approach” an acceptable change? Maybe we end up with 4 losses, maybe that ends up being a good year under whatever the circumstances ended up being, but the “first year head coach” excuse seems like weak sauce to me, especially in July. Wasn’t KS brought in precisely because UGA had the talent to do better, it just needed better coaching? Seems odd to me that anyone would accept the idea that more losses is ok, especially since KS has “been doing all the right things” since he arrived.
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Exactly..
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Amen
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The first thing Kirby has to do is tear down and rebuild the foundation of the program. Richt left behind one that did not win the SEC since my 12-year old was still in diapers. The same one that got humiliated in JAX last year and had their pants yanked down by Alabama. There seems to be a lot of work to do in Athens.
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More worked needed than many here want to admit.
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Obviously they’re blinded to that fact by their love for the Miami coach
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The truth is that it is much much much harder to win in this conference (even in the “weak” East) than many here seem to realize. 9-3 would not just be a “meh” season but an incredible and unexpected success. At least it should be viewed that way, IMHO.
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so which one is it? UGA is a train wreck/shambles that needs a total rebuild, or UGA is a pretty good program with a lot of assets that underachieved and needs a boost to get to the top level? If you say it’s the first, how the heck did we win 10 games last year? Or any year?
I am not arguing that the previous staff had not hit a wall of sorts. That ship has sailed. On the other hand, 9 and 10 win seasons, even with the humiliating performances you wail about, don’t just happen by accident. Ask a UT fan, or a Florida fan post Urban, or an AU fan in non-Cam/non-double miracle years. KS was sold to a lot of us as an upgrade. Fair enough. He seems to be doing all the right things to back that up, so far. Why are those of you who wanted him the worst already making excuses for him?
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I’m with you 110% 81. If we go 8-4, losing to every “good” team we play isn’t that just what we got last year?
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No snark intended – I’m curious what you mean by that.
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IMHO, it’s the foundation of being mentally weak and coddled especially after Vangorder left. Pruitt, to his credit tried to correct that problem.
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guessing you would turn down the opportunity to tell any UGA player from the last decade that he was mentally weak.
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+1
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Man, the internet is not about saying things we’d say to people’s faces. Who here would tell Richt to his face that he was a huge disappointment?
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The foundation: type of players recruited – positions valued, size, speed, mentality; strength and conditioning program – diet, work rate, recovery philosophy, evaluation of progress; player development – evaluation of skillsets, preferred coaching techniques and fundamentals taught, medical care philosophy; etc., etc. etc. Richt had some things right, but not all. I would image everything gets redone Kirby’s way at this point in the hope that he gets it all right. Don’t you? Guys may have to change the way they eat, sleep, workout, practice, study, lead, follow, accept reward and punishment.
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I don’t argue with your list. I just wouldn’t have phrased it the way you did to start with. 😉
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maybe KS’s first step should be to recruit a smarter level of UGA fan. 😉
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there’s only ONE way to re-build the foundation….
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I won’t freak out over 8-4 but 9 wins should be the benchmark considering the schedule. I am more interested in seeing how they play down the line. Will the offensive line start to close out games for us? Will our special teams make plays that shifts momentum? I want to see a spark.
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8-4 might be what I’m thinking too, but I don’t see this team losing at home to Auburn, who 1) sucks and 2) can’t beat UGA without a generational talent or a Hail Mary.
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You should probably read this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_South's_Oldest_Rivalry
or
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_South%27s_Oldest_Rivalry
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Obviously Richt isn’t in Athens anymore, but if we’re going by his arrival as a starting point…
2005: Hail Mary Auburn win
2006: Georgia win
2007: Georgia win
2008: Georgia win
2009: Georgia win
2010: Generational Talent Auburn win
2011: Georgia win
2012: Georgia win
2013: Hail Mary Auburn win
2014: Georgia win
2015: Georgia win
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Before ’05, better Auburn teams won when they should’ve, better Georgia teams won when they should’ve.
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While that’s generally true of all rivalries, there are outliers.
See: “If you can’t beat ’em, hose ’em”. Also, every time you guys lose to Vandy, you beat AU.
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I am getting way confused. Old coach goes 9-3 in regular season, gets fired because he didn’t beat anybody with a pulse. New coach gets to go 8-4 and not beat anybody that matters but that’s ok because you know he’s a new coach. No wonder the Miami fans think we’re crazy. The team has to at least do as well as last year or WTF was the point in paying CMR $8 million to leave. I’m too old for this wait till next year BS.
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Do you really think that Richt got fired over ONE season’s results? Really? Deep down inside, you think that?
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Apparently he was since he had had 10 wins two years in a row. Nobody but the AD and the big donors know for sure. I’m just saying why would we lower the expectations for Kirby???
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I agree with your second sentence, but not your first. It was, to me, mostly a lack of championships, rather than wins. And the manner in which some of the losses occurred. Without looking it up, I think Richt went 8-4 his first year, so I’m keeping my expectations the same for a first-year coach. I expect more from a fifteen-year veteran than I do a rookie. But that’s just my opinion.
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I’ve always attributed 100% of the blame or credit to a head coach and by extension his coaching staff for the long term success or failure of a marquee college football program. (I.e.school with tradition and resources not Podunk state). The head coach is in charge of hiring abd firing staff which is in turn responsible for recruiting, developing, & preparing Players. Obviously I’m not blaming small sample sizes (i.e. a fumble or drop or even one game) on a failure of coaching but if your players consistently “aren’t making plays” then that means the coaches are either recruiting the wrong guys or not coaching then up. Just as on the flip side the coaching staff is doing the right things.
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This was meant in response to eethomas above at 1:49 in regards to who should get credit for wins and losses.
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That’s intellectually honest as usual, charlotte. I can absolutely respect that point of view. That’s also different from a lot of people here who clearly thought that any win over the last 7-8 years was in spite of the coaching and every loss was no one’s fault but the coaches.
I just think that the team (coaches and players) gets the credit for wins and shoulders the blame for losses together.
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I believe everyone is gong to be suprises by the team that KS puts on the field this year. Surly some of Saban has rubbed off on him. Nothing short of 10-2 will do for me.
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Kirby said it best when he was newly hired and first spoke to the team. ‘The difference between y’all and Alabama is this much 👉🏼👈🏾.” I’m sure there’s a lot of work to get that much more, but I also believe it’s doable.
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