Mickey’s stat geeks have the Dawgs third in the country in FPI, while projecting something like a 10-2 regular season. How come?
Welp, it’s the schedule, stupid. Fifth-ranked strength of schedule, based on playing seven of the top twenty teams. (By the way, how about the ‘Cocks going 6-6 with the 18th ranked team in FPI?)
To give you an idea of how tough ESPN projects the SEC East to be, Georgia only has a 2.5% chance of running the table in the regular season, and the next best chance of doing so goes to Missouri… at 0.4%.
Here’s how FPI projects Georgia’s regular season schedule:
You read that right — Georgia projects to have an easier time with Notre Dame than with Tennessee. FPI favors the Dawgs in each game, but cumulative effect is a beyotch, I suppose.
Thoughts?
Get The Picture 
It’s so difficult to go 12-0 in any league, let alone one as deep as the SEC. While on paper Georgia is better than each of its 12 opponents, as you said in the post, the accumulative effect is what gets teams. When you look at the layout of the schedule the month of November sticks out. Florida, Mizzou, @Auburn, and A&M all in a row with Mizzou and Auburn getting byes the week before they play Georgia.
This is why I have UGA losing at least 1 regular season game (hopefully just the one).
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Agreed, Parrish. We’ve only had 4 unbeaten regular seasons since 1900, and one of those, 1968, had two regular season ties. And remember that the vast majority of those were 10 or 11 game regular seasons instead of 12.
As to South Carolina, they play the following teams along with that teams FPI:
Alabama; 1
Clemson: 2
at Georgia: 3
Florida: 8
at Texas A&M: 11
at Tennessee: 15
at Missouri: 19
Brutal.
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66.6% against the Vols? Is there something, we (DawgNation), don’t know about?
And what about that 54.7% against Auburn? Is that because they have a bye week before playing us…in The Plains?
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UGA under Smart has yet to be an SEC West team on the road.
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The Auburn game is the one I worry about for exactly the reason you mention. I wonder if this year will be different because Gus may be on his way out by the end of November.
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Where’s that roadtrip to Arkansas when you need it?
I’d like to see a logical defense of some of those numbers… In what world has Tennessee become a bigger challenge than Notre Dame and aTm? Jim Chaney must be the greatest OC on the planet.
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Emotionally, Tennessee’s going to be tough, road game, rivalry game, might be a mental letdown after ND.
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Any conference game on the road has this potential, but Georgia also has an extra week to prepare for that game.
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Here’s the real problem Senator—that stretch approaching the end of the season has games against several really tough opponents in a row and the opponents get the prior week off and Georgia doesn’t. I don’t know if Mickey is taking that into account but I sure am.
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Valid point. I guess this is when we’ll find out if the rubber meets the road, as to UGA supposedly having better depth on its roster than any of its regular season opponents.
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Pigeon entrails, tarot cards, tea leaves, oh my!
SWAG fortune telling till the game is played. But to your point, Kirby is “defeated” against the west. Surely he won’t stay that way?
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PAWWWLLL!!!, Kirby’s never gonna win a West game on the road until Jawja quits playing in Jacksonville!!!
Too soon?
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I don’t think those two things are related. 😉
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IDK. Yesterday was kind of fun since I don’t have a dog in that fight.
And I left out “On the road”.
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My thought is that it’s absolutely hysterical that ESPN thinks that tech’s odds of beating UGA are only the tiniest sliver better than Murray State and Arkansas State! LOL!
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That last stretch of 5 is brutal. And don’t discount Geoff getting his guys up for what could be a season-salvaging effort against a Top 10 team after they face the 48th, 43rd, 32nd, and 46th in FPI leading up to the COFH game. I dare say Georgia will be far more beat up as they take Mark Richt Field in November.
Agreed, Senator…we will really see how deep our roster is come November.
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SEC East is crazy overrated. Tennessee and Vandy are not very good and likely not improving that much this year. Kentucky should take a big step back with personnel losses and their QB is not good. Mizzou is on probation and is banking on a transfer QB to step in for Lock. Mizzou was average with Lock (this blog has a lot of respect for Mizzou and I don’t understand why) and I believe they lost a lot of offensive firepower. SC and Florida are likely playing for second place and neither team is anywhere close to a top 10 team. Maybe Georgia is elite but they can win the east with 2 conference losses, possibly beat Bama in the SECC (surely Bama’s coaching losses catch up to them at some point), and then get pounded by Clemson in a playoff.
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With regard to Mizzou, you can go a long way with a good offensive line and an easy schedule.
I think the Tigers finish ahead of the ‘Cocks this season.
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Bryant is a talented runner and could give some teams fits, especially with a good offensive line. MO could surprise some teams this year.
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I just hope Georgia’s not one of them.
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Maybe. They have lost to SC the past three years and I don’t see them improving that much. They somehow lost to SC’s backup QB last year. Mizzou looks real impressive against terrible teams and the SEC east is full of them.
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So you get it then? Because on top of the east, they get Ole Miss and Arkansas from the west. A rebuilding, new coach WVU; Wyoming and some directional somebody. Seems like a recipe for wins.
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What am I supposed get? Mizzou will be good because their schedule is easy?
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They’ll have a better record than SC because of scheduling.
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I didn’t disagree. I said maybe you are right. It doesn’t make them good. You have a respect for Mizzou every year that I don’t understand. They are consistently very average.
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Last year, I picked them to go 7-5.
The year before, 6-6.
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I got that impression from reading the hundreds of posts (and other comments) written about Mizzou over the years. They seem to get a lot of respect on this board. Your predictions are much closer to their reality. It doesn’t really change my original post, the SEC East sucks and is terribly overrated.
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Well, if you’re talking over the years, Mizzou has two divisional titles to its name this decade, which is more than you can say for several other schools.
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Yes, and they followed those up with a two win season and a coaching change.
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I had forgotten how dubious we all were going into ’17. You had us at 8-5 giving up the east to Florida, and I remember thinking that was pretty fucking optimistic considering all the “ifs”. Buuuuut….
All the ifs got fixed.
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Vandy has a very good running back and our D line is circumspect. Remember Kerryon?
For some reason the Inner Munson feels a twinge of concern …
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LOL
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http://www.espn.com/college-football/team/fpi?id=2633&year=2019
Looking strictly at the game-by-game schedule, FPI has Tennessee going 9-3 in the regular season.
I don’t see enough depth on their lines for that to hold up.
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They rate UT our 3rd toughest opponent? Ahead of ND and TAMU? Might want to check your math Mickey.
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FPI is about to get bounced for Bill Connelly’s S&P+. They’re listing both for now, but they just hired Bill, and his numbers are objectively better predictors of all things CFB. If Bill and ESPN gee-haw, FPI won’t last into the year 2020. Keeping both risks watering down the perception of the better one.
For reference, last I checked Bill C had A&M at 13, UT at 21, with a significant statistical gap between the two.
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Mickey is taking geography into account in the mathematical equation. ND and TAMU are within the cozy confines of Sanford Stadium. We will scrimmage the hillbillies at that garbage dump on the banks of the Tennessee River. That will be a major challenge for the young pups in their maturation process.
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Even though UGA looks to be a strong favorite against all 12 opponents in 2019 when looked at in isolation, I also pick us to go 11-1, barring any significant injury situations. Almost impossible to predict going 12-0 in this league. I think the reason TN is picked so high to be our downfall has less to do with their talent matchup against UGA as it being one the road, following a very hyped game the week before. Hard for me to forget the euphoria of blowing out Saban/LSU the week before our face plant at TN the following week. Talk about going from the penthouse to the outhouse, all in 7 days. I am sure this example will be used by Kirby if we get too carried away this time around.
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A nice BYE appears between ND and UT for UGA.
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I read this stuff, then I consider we have Fromm, Swift, an OL that other schools can only dream about, the deepest defensive front 7 outside bama, three returning starters at DB, not to mention the punter and kicker returning. I could see a hickup loss perhaps, but losing 2 out of 12 just ain’t gonna happen. Skeptics have to dig deep to find holes on this team.
Weakness at WR? We’ve got two 5-star and multiple 4-star replacements.
Nauta left early? One could argue Woerner might be an improvement. He’s bigger and faster. Then there’s 3 more quality candidates for the backup job.
This team, and Kirby in particular, are not getting due credit. It’s a solid, talented team from top to bottom. There’s no question we will be in the championship hunt. Two regular season losses?! What a load of bullshit!
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Lies, damn lies and statistics. How many more days til this starts getting settled on the field?
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53
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I really don’t understand Tennessee jumping all the way to 15th in this. i can’t find the final FPI rankings from last season, but S&P+ had them 48th. Nothing in their ’16, ’17 and ’18 recruiting classes indicates they’re going to make such a large jump. There also seems something off with the formula when 10 of the 14 teams in the conference show up in the top 20. I think the SEC has better depth than other conferences, but not THAT much better.
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PFF ranks Guarantano higher than Fromm. https://247sports.com/LongFormArticle/Top-SEC-quarterbacks-Tua-Tagovailoa-Jake-Fromm-Jarrett-Guarantano-131662252/#131662252_1
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South Carolina is going to straight up bounce at least one good team that doesn’t take them seriously.
I think they crush UF and UT, and scare the shit out of either UGA or Clemson. A&M SC will be a very underrated game; should be a good one.
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We’ll sweep the East (again), but a lackadaisical performance in JAX will have Kirby hopping mad. He’ll throw either the Auburn or TAMU game based on which could hurt Bama more and to get his troops attention for the SECCG and Playoff Run. 8 dimensional chess.
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It’s gonna’ be “one week at a time, one game at a time” mantra this year, i’ll hang up and listen….
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