Stewart Mandel forecasts a lukewarm debut for Kirby Smart.
SEC East No. 3: Georgia (7-5, 4-4 SEC)
New coach Kirby Smart will likely be relying on a true freshman QB (Jacob Eason), not an ideal scenario in the SEC.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think that’ll go over too well.
Get The Picture 
Based on Howie’s 2015 predictions I don’t feel too concerned.
http://www.foxsports.com/college-football/story/alabama-crimson-tide-texas-am-aggies-tennessee-volunteers-auburn-tigers-sec-picks-predictions-081015
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This.
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How do dopes like Mandel ever get a job like the one he has in the first place. He’s a moron and has shown it many, many times over the years.
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Don’t forget to pack your zircon encrusted tweezers.
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“tweezers”? Perhaps a roach clip?
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I thought of that song too – gonna be a dental floss tycoon!
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I like being underrated. Makes it easier to fly under the radar and not have the pressure of expectations.
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Just so I get this straight…he thinks UGA will basically have the easiest schedule in the SEC only playing two teams over .500 in league play (UTenn and UF) and they still go 4-4? I’m not sure his predictions could actually happen from a scheduling standpoint.
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7-5 means losses to unc, ole miss, ut, Florida and then another between mizzou, auburn or tech. Not implausible. However, unless the defense is a tire fire or we lose Nick again, I see us generating enough offense to get to 9. We’ll win two of those four tough ones and blow and easy one. That’s my prediction.
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Since he’s got a 4-4 conference record, I would assume the fourth loss is to Auburn.
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I would think 9-3 would/should be the baseline. Anything less than that means that either we lost all 4 games that could be considered “toss-ups”, or we won one of those and lost to somebody we have no business losing to. That would be a huge disappointment and a step backwards, as far as I’m concerned.
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In fact, I would agree with this assessment, from ESPN’s preview. These are their “FPI” projections:
Georgia’s chances to win each game
09.03 vs. North Carolina (Georgia Dome): 61.9%
09.10 vs. Nicholls State: 99.9%
09.17 @ Missouri: 77.3%
09.24 @ Ole Miss: 37.7%
10.01 vs. Tennessee: 44.2%
10.08 @ South Carolina: 79.7%
10.15 vs Vanderbilt: 87.1%
10.29 Florida (Jacksonville): 61.4%
11.05 @ Kentucky: 81.9%
11.12 vs. Auburn: 67.5%
11.19 vs. Louisiana Lafayette: 97.9%
11.26 vs. Georgia Tech: 86.1%
That looks like 9-3 or 10-2, with losses to Ole Miss and UT. While that would likely keep us out of the dome, I would take that for the first year under Kirby.
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Has anyone considered that Kirby would know more than any East coach concerning OM? He’s played them enough to know how they think and operate. Yep, ‘Bama has lost to them, but he has the upper hand in that series. And they don’t have the two Ga guns he pirated several years ago and they made Hugh click for awhile, but they be gone. Now it’s Kirby vs Naked Hugh.
Tennessee is here and they will see more and faster red than they have in years. It happened to SC last year as measured from the year before and everyone should go back to see what the pundits said about SC before 2015 season. I think we corner them like rats in Sanford. And that our team interception rate spikes in that game.
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More fun with/weird stats and Ole Miss: OM has a shockingly bad record against SEC East teams, particularly given how one-sided the West and East have been lately. Florida utterly annihilated them last year, for example.
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The last 2 seasons it looked to me like they would get themselves super amped for Bama, but when they would play other “Smashmouth” or running teams, the defense didn’t really want any part of them. Arky, UF, last year, LSU and AU the year before. Hopefully our 2 RB are 100% by the time we travel to Oxford.
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7-5 would be a nice upgrade from last year. Wouldn’t it?
I guess he’s got us losing to an ACC team.
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We’re trying to build something here, man!!!
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Who couldn’t win more than 10 with that group of players? Anyone could except the new guy apparently and why the hell should we think he can? I mean that’s just unreasonable!
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You gotta’ put a smiley face in there once in a while, ’cause ,you know, everyone doesn’t get it the way you want them to interpret here.
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On the other hand I’m not sure his prediction is any more unfounded than those who believe our season will be an unmitigated disaster if we don’t make it to the SEC Championship this year. And let’s face it, if we lose to Ole Miss and Tennessee, two good teams, throw in the annual face plant and just like that we’re looking at the very real possibility of a four loss season if the face plant game isn’t Florida. Channeling my inner Munson. I don’t think we’ll lose five though. I sure hope Kirby can keep us focused enough to avoid the face plant.
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If this happens, it will cause the greatest case of buyer’s remorse since Chizik got an $1M+ raise and an extension in 2011. Kirby can lose to UNC, Ole Miss, Tennessee and/or Florida, but if the loss is best described as “not showing up” or to a team without a pulse, it will cause mass internet casualties.
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I don’t think he can lose all 4 of those games or the “we didn’t beat a team with a pulse” crowd will be back in full force.
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Gosh I was hoping our coach could stay off the hot seat until at least October.
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You mean we are gonna get worse before we get better???….BAH, don’t believe it, the cupboard ain’t bare. If the old staff can get 10 wins last year, surely a new….better staff can get more. Personnel wise, this is a better team than last year imo. It is up to the coaches to do the rest. Smart and staff is gonna make McGarity look like a hero.
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He might be right, but I have to believe his prediction was more pulled out of his ass than his mind. Yeah, Kirby is a first year coach, and yeah, there will be some hiccups, but if he watched last year and saw how we managed to win more than 7, what does he think will be that different this year? I mean he also predicted Bama would not win the conference. That makes sense in the way that a stopped clock is right twice a day. It could happen.
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Bama winning last year was great. I enjoyed watching them win it all last year for the first time in the Saban Era. I couldn’t believe I was sitting there watching them win another NC and I was practically giggling. One major reason, of course, was that they beat Clemson/Dabo, but another reason was because so many people had written them off – and, more than that – had predicted Auburn to win the SECW. Laugh-track
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Stewie is full of shit
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09.03 vs. North Carolina (Georgia Dome): W
09.10 vs. Nicholls State: W
09.17 @ Missouri: W
09.24 @ Ole Miss: L
10.01 vs. Tennessee: L
10.08 @ South Carolina: W
10.15 vs Vanderbilt: W
10.29 Florida (Jacksonville): W
11.05 @ Kentucky: W
11.12 vs. Auburn: W
11.19 vs. Louisiana Lafayette: W
11.26 vs. Georgia Tech: W
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Wonder how much Stewart would be willing to wager on that prediction.
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Agreed. He reads here and it isn’t beyond the Senator to propose something juicy when pressure of school loyalty is applied. How about his name recognition vs Smart’s?
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Lose 5 and the bloom would be off the Bulldog red rose.
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I don’t get the number of people who think Ole Miss is an L. They play Bama the week prior, so they are going to be battered. They might be 1-2 and hence desperate, but they also might be 1-2 and deflated.
They will definitely have an edge at QB. However, the handouts came to an abrupt halt on April 28. The NCAA mess will remain a huge distraction. I think by week 4 Hugh just might have a crisis on his hands. Young teams with zero depth, coming off 2 tilts in 3 weeks with Top 5 programs, plus NCAA issues….
I see that game ranging from a coin flip to 2/3rds Georgia.
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Plus we haven’t lost to them since what, the mid-90s?
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I’ve thought like you after looking at their schedule, but I think if all things are equal then it’s at Ole Miss, it’s early in a year where we have new coaches, schemes, and an unsettled QB situation, and then they’ve been pretty darn good the last two years. It’s easy to forget they were a 4th and 22 stop away from going to Atlanta.
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I think the wheels fall off in Oxford this year, while Auburn over performs a bit relative to expectations.
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Checked the betting site again, public not only disagrees with Mandel, with the over/under on UGA at 8 1/2, it still costs more to bet the under than the over so they have raised the odds. I still believe 9/3 or 8/4 is the most likely based on what we know. But I would say that 7-5 is no more likely than 10-2, just depends on what goes our way, or falls on our heads.
This is a decent team with a reasonable schedule, neither championship, nor disaster, imo. Mandel seems to be putting way too much on Eason, and I don’t think he will be our primary QB all season long.
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Ever get the impression that Mandel made the Montana remark because HE doesn’t know anything about Georgia football? Because I get that impression. He knows one thing about Georgia, that we’ve got a hot-shot freshman. His idea that Kirby is “likely” going with Eason tells me that he hasn’t paid attention to Georgia since G-Day.
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If Eason is the starter at UNC, Mandel may be right. If Kirby has to play a true freshman at qb, 8 wins will be a good season.
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Mandel is a dumb ass
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LOL! He knows less than anyone who reads GTP daily.
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What a dick.
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Forget last season, absolutely no way our Offense is Offensive in 2016. With that alone, it’s still just a 4 game schedule: UNC, OM, UT, UF. I’ll take those odds as I believe there will not be a deer in the headlight game.
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If Chubb is healthy and plays all year, there’s no way this team loses more than 3 games and probably should have a chance to win every game. he’s that good.
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I agree, if Chubb is more than healthy and plays all year, emphasis on “more”. He appears to be healthy, but is he really “Chubb like”, meaning what he was before the injury? We simply cannot answer that question at this point, no one can. And let’s all really hope he stays healthy all year, again, no one knows. I think he will be pretty danged good because he is Nick Chubb after all, but I have a hard time believing he will be close to 100% until, at least, the last 1/3 of the season. If he is,9-3 or 10-2 becomes the more likely record, he just puts enormous stress of a defense and opens up plays for others.
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I gotta tell ya, Mac, if he was anything less than 100%, I can’t imagine they’d be letting him scrimmage full speed. I agree that is hard to fathom, but I just don’t see how they could possibly be scrimmaging him if that weren’t the case. We’ve got smart people right? Ron Courson is one of the best.
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