This is almost sad.
Daily Archives: September 17, 2019
No, they can’t take that away from him.
I only hope that each of you is loved by someone as much as Mark Bradley loves the fact that Paul Johnson is the last coach to beat Kirby Smart in Athens.
Go down and stay there.
On Cager’s touchdown reception, I was so intent on watching him, I missed the best part of the play.
Check out what Cade Mays does to a poor ol’ ASU defensive lineman.
Don’t bother to get up until the whistle blows, dude.
Filed under Georgia Football
“The football gods are watching.”
Honestly, do any of y’all feel this?
No. 3 Georgia and No. 7 Notre Dame are both steeped in rich tradition, but they don’t have much real history together, not as far as actual on-field meetings go. Yet their matchup Saturday feels like one filled with the bad blood, pettiness and season-changing implications that go hand-in-hand with rivalry games.
The “bad blood” evidently is supposed to extend from last year’s CFP, which the Irish made and Dawgs didn’t. Not sure who’s feeling that now, especially after Georgia laid an egg in the Sugar Bowl.
This just seems like the kind of trumped up stuff Mickey loves to invent, because it’s not enough to have a first-time meeting in Athens between two great programs that both come in ranked in the top ten. I’ve got the feeling I’ll be really glad I can’t watch College GameDay Saturday.
It’s run the damned ball time again.
If you look at SP+, you’ll see that there’s one area of clear separation between Georgia and Notre Dame. (I know sample size is relatively small, but it’s all we’ve got to work with.)
The Irish have been solid on offense and special teams, but there’s a noticeable gap on defense. And that, in turn, brings us to a place where the early numbers suggest Georgia has a sizeable advantage Saturday night: Georgia’s run game versus Notre Dame’s run defense.
The story of the latter isn’t pretty. This week, at 4.96, ND sits an almost unbelievable 107th in defensive yards per rush. (For comparison’s sake, Georgia’s 2.14 ranks tenth.) That’s barely better than Arkansas State, for point of reference. That defense is tasked with stopping a rushing attack that currently ranks fifth nationally, at 7.61 yards per carry. (Again, comparing the teams, Notre Dame averages 4.84 ypc, good for 49th.)
On paper, that’s a tall order. To start with, those stats were compiled against Louisville and New Mexico, neither of which are going to be confused with offensive powerhouses. Beyond that, the situational stats aren’t good. It’s not the result of ND having relaxed in the second half after building big leads, either. In fact, that defense yielded at a rate of 6.91 ypc in the first half and 3.57 in the second half. It’s also gotten creamed on third down (9.24 ypc!), regardless of distance.
I don’t want to sound too confident here, but if that defense can’t stop Georgia’s rushing attack or at least slow it down considerably, barring some craziness on the turnover front, I don’t see a path to victory for Notre Dame. It’s the number one point on any defensive coordinator’s list for beating Georgia. Allowing that running game to function successfully essentially drives everything a Smart-coached team wants to do in terms of clock management, not taking big risks in the passing game and keeping Georgia’s defense fresh.
Your thoughts?
10-11-12
Regarding this twitter thread,
… the biggest thing I gleaned from it was a confirmation of what I saw from the stands: the offensive line dominated all game long. And that was without Isaiah Wilson, who, by the way, returned to practice yesterday.
Filed under Georgia Football, Strategery And Mechanics
A pay for play buffet
A few morsels rounded up for your reading pleasure:
- A reminder about the value of that free education the NCAA touts: “According to 2018 report from USC’s Race and Equity Center, just 55% of black athletes from the Power Five conferences, which include college sports’ most profitable programs, graduate in six years as compared to 69.3% of all student-athletes.”
- This is a detailed breakdown of how we got to California’s Fair Pay to Play Act, as well as what we might expect to see if there’s a court challenge (assuming it passes, of course).
- Scratch Mike Leach on the subject of paying players and he sounds a lot more like Dabo than Mike Leach.
- For those of you who don’t get how antitrust law and cartels work, remember that you don’t have to buy tuna fish.
“But people have this game circled because it is the nature of the beast — Notre Dame at Georgia…”
My ass will be in its seat, of course, but it’s worth speculating about the eyeballs on Saturday night’s game.
Last year’s Alabama-LSU game on CBS brought in 11.6 million viewers, making it the most watched prime-time regular season game on any network. That was a larger audience than the most watched 3:30 p.m. SEC on CBS game, between Alabama and Auburn, which drew 9.2 million viewers. The Georgia-Alabama SEC championship game drew more than 17 million viewers.
This is the 29th season NBC has broadcast Notre Dame games on that network. Last season when the Fighting Irish made their run to the college football playoff, the games drew the most viewers on the network in the last six years, averaging 3.49 million, according to the National Football Foundation. Notre Dame vs. Michigan drew 7.2 million.
The 2011 Alabama-LSU prime time game drew 20.1 million viewers.
Georgia has the opportunity to make a big impression on a large platform. Where do you think the viewership numbers will fall?
Filed under Georgia Football, Notre Dame's Faint Echoes
Before you can look forward, you gotta look back… again.
Wallow in the pleasure of Nick Toomey’s Twitter thread reliving the 2017 Notre Dame game.
I learned a lot about that Georgia team — the defensive speed, Nick’s and Sony’s rebound, Roquan’s dominance, the overall grit and determination of those players — but the biggest thing I learned that night was that Jake Fromm had the guts of a burglar.
To call that throw clutch is almost a disservice. Just a monster of a play when Georgia absolutely had to have it.
Good times.
Filed under Georgia Football
Urban comin’
So… you may remember this tidbit from the spring.
Reggie Bush is not allowed at USC games or practices because of NCAA sanctions but said that won’t prevent him from trying to help his alma mater. Bush — who will be on a new college football pregame show this fall with former USC teammate Matt Leinart, former Notre Dame quarterback Brady Quinn and coaching great Urban Meyer — said he and Leinart would recruit Meyer to come out of retirement and take the USC job if Clay Helton struggles again this season.
“We’ll definitely be recruiting him,” Bush said. “What makes you think we won’t be recruiters? Nothing is off the table.”
Bush later claimed he was joking about that, but still, here we are today.
What a coincidence, eh?
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