This would appear to be a troubling development.
Starting with South Carolina, everybody’s got the formula on how to defend Georgia on first down. Smart does a lot of self-scouting in game prep; you’d think at some point they’d start breaking tendencies to offset what’s been happening.
Filed under Georgia Football, Stats Geek!, Strategery And Mechanics
I get where Jake Fromm is coming from with that QOTD. Check out this devastating block Charlie Woerner — whose blocking in general is much improved from earlier in the season — laid in the Missouri game:
Now, if only Kindley could have flattened his guy, Zeus would still be running.
Filed under Georgia Football, Strategery And Mechanics
Sure, we all bitch and moan about bad officiating calls, but in terms of sheer what-the-fuck-were-they-doing-there?, it’s really hard to top that horrendous penalty call on the wrong team in the Cal-Wazzu game last weekend. Jon Wilmer does the full “let me count the ways” takedown here.
I’m amazed this is all Mike Leach has had to say on the matter so far.
Just another day in Larry Scott’s finely tuned machine, I guess.
Filed under Pac-12 Football
First, some current context:
2019 SEC — Defensive Yards Per Play, Conference Games Only
2019 SEC — Offensive Yards Per Play, Conference Games Only
Combined, in case you’re interested, nets out to a .83 ypp advantage in Georgia’s favor. The general impression, though, is that these are two fairly similar outfits.
It’s a similar story when you look at red zone conversion percentage in SEC games, where Georgia is first, at 95.83%, and Auburn is third, at 90.91%. Though you should also check out defensive red zone conversion percentage in conference games where Georgia’s 44.44% is tops (the Dawgs are also first nationally in that regard) and Auburn’s 77.78% is only good for sixth.
Other comparisons:
Everything about those stats tells me this is going to be a low-scoring slugfest. One hopeful sign about that is it would be hard for Georgia to lose by 25 points, which has been about the average margin of defeat in its three prior regular season ventures out west under Smart. So there’s that.
Seth Emerson ($$) has another hopeful suggestion in that regard.
There’s an interesting dynamic to Georgia’s recent visits: The last four Auburn wins – 2017, 2013, 2010 and 2004 – came when the Tigers still harbored national title hopes. This is one of those years Auburn doesn’t have those hopes, unless a great miracle happens. (Auburn still technically could win the SEC West, but it would take winning out and having No. 1 LSU lose its final three games.)
Considering one of those three games is Arkansas in Baton Rouge, that ain’t happening. Which means that Georgia has a lot more on the line in this game than does Auburn. When you’ve got pretty even teams facing off, give me eyes on the prize as a separator every time.
If Georgia pulls off a win on the Plains Saturday, it would be slightly amusing if Kirby has to thank Boom for helping his team’s focus. But I’ll take it.
Filed under Auburn's Cast of Thousands, Georgia Football, Stats Geek!
One reason the NCAA is faring so poorly right now in the face of numerous state legislatures moving to protect college athletes’ NIL rights is because amateurism is a tougher sell when you’re not talking about putting them on a straight salary paid by the schools. I mean, how convincing is yelling “student-athlete!” at the top of your lungs when this is the argument the other side is making?
“At first we got crushed. They beat us in every avenue and we kind of anticipated that,” said Walker, the North Carolina congressman. “But with some of these states taking a look at it, we’ve been able to push back a little bit on what the truth of this legislation is and we believe it’s starting to shift to our side with people saying, ‘Yeah, a 20 year old male or female busted their rear end 40 hours a week on a volleyball court or gymnasium or football field and to tell them they have no access to their name, image or likeness isn’t right.’ Look, Nike isn’t coming in and signing 450,000 college athletes but somewhere the backup quarterback at some university can go back home and pick up 100 bucks for an appearance fee at a restaurant or a car wash or whatever, that individual should have access to be able to do so and not be the only people in this country that are banned from having that access.”
Sadly, I feel pretty sure the NCAA won’t be able to come up with an effective answer until it gets its ass kicked a few more times in the political arena.
Filed under Political Wankery, The NCAA
Well, actually, I am, a little. Yeah, I know the Dawgs’ o-line did a decent job handling him in last year’s game, but it’s 2019 now and I still remember this from a few weeks ago:
What makes Brown more challenging is that he’s able to be disruptive from the interior of the defensive line. South Carolina’s Javon Kinlaw was able to do the same and he gave Georgia fits. Kinlaw finished the game with only 1.0 sack, but he was the one who pressured Fromm into a crucial pick-6.
Hill and Mays had a hard time handling South Carolina’s interior defensive linemen and Brown’s at least as formidable as Kinlaw, not to mention Hill and Mays are likely to enter the Auburn game banged up. Let’s hope Georgia’s got some answers about to handle the situation better this time.
Filed under Auburn's Cast of Thousands, Georgia Football
Meet the next Georgia gold rush.
Four of Atlanta’s major professional sports franchises are putting their weight behind an effort to allow betting on games.
Presidents of the Atlanta Braves, Atlanta Falcons, Atlanta Hawks and Atlanta United have formed the Georgia Professional Sports Integrity Alliance and sent a letter to state lawmakers asking them to legalize online and mobile sports betting…
Billy Linville, a lobbyist who is representing the coalition of teams, said the franchises would not see any revenue from sports betting, but that allowing the practice would engage fans who tune in to watch and see how their bets play out — driving up viewership and interest in the games.
“The question isn’t if Georgians are going to bet on sports,” Linville said. “It’s whether they’ll wager in an illegal market or bet in a fully regulated environment that protects consumers and integrity of games.”
These guys are so thoughtful, amirite?
If you’re wondering why I post about this, don’t think Butts-Mehre isn’t watching this development with a careful eye, not because they’re concerned about stopping it (although that would be in line with the Georgia Way we all know and love, especially if they could figure out a way to allow only Magill Society folks to bet in Sanford Stadium… I keed, I keed. I think.), but because of the potential revenue streams flowing from legalized online betting.
But West Virginia’s Joint Standing Committee on Finance spent most of its time Monday trying to figure out whether Governor Jim Justice – who owns the Greenbrier – and West Virginia Lottery officials were still pushing plans to offer the major sports leagues a cut of the state’s betting handle or require betting operators to use league-supplied data to judge wagering results. [Emphasis added.]
Ah, the ol’ “integrity fee”, surely one of the great Orwellian phrases of our time, and/or making it a legal requirement to use official conference statistics in online wagering. Expect the latter to be a standard proposal in the South once Greg Sankey is able to get up off his fainting couch.
These people may not be geniuses, but they’re certainly shrewd enough to know how not to miss many meals. It’s coming.
Filed under Bet On It, Political Wankery
Total offense (yards per game)
No. 32 overall, No. 3 in the SEC: 448.4 yards per game
Last week: No. 26 overall, No. 3 in the SEC: 462.1 yards per game
2018 end of season ranking: No. 18 overall, No. 5 in SEC: 464.9 yards per game
2017 end of season ranking: No. 36 overall, No. 5 in SEC: 435.3 yards per game
2016 end of season ranking: No. 87 overall, 384.7 yards per game
Total defense (yards allowed per game)
No. 5 overall, No. 1 in the SEC: 260.3 yards allowed per game
Last week: No. 8 overall, No. 1 in the SEC: 268.1 yards allowed per game
2018 end of season ranking: No. 13 overall, No. 2 in the SEC: 314.3 yards allowed per game
2017 end of season ranking: No. 6 overall, No. 2 in SEC: 294.9 yards allowed per game
2016 end of season ranking: No. 16 overall, 327.5 yards allowed per game
Scoring offense
No. 36 overall, No. 4 in the SEC: 33.7 points per game
Last week: No. 31 overall, No. 3 in the SEC: 34.5 points per game
2018 end of season ranking: No. 14 overall, No. 2 in SEC: 37.9 points per game
2017 end of season ranking: No. 20 overall, No. 3 in SEC: 35.4 points per game
2016 end of season ranking: No. 102 overall, 24.5 points per game
Scoring defense
No. 2 overall, No. 1 in the SEC: 10.1 points allowed per game
Last week: No. 4 overall, No. 1 in the SEC: 11.4 points allowed per game
2018 end of season ranking: No. 15 overall, No. 5 in SEC: 19.2 points allowed per game
2017 end of season ranking: No. 6 overall, No. 2 in SEC: 16.4 points allowed per game
2016 end of season ranking: No. 35 overall, 24 points allowed per game
You can spiel me all you want about the quality of the opposition, but those numbers make a strong case for this being Georgia’s best defense under Smart.
It’s a championship-level defense. The question is whether the offense is good enough to go along with it.
Filed under Georgia Football, Stats Geek!
I spent more than ten minutes on my ballot this week. Almost all of that time was devoted to thinking about Alabama. In the end, I could justify ‘Bama as the fourth-best team in the country, but I couldn’t make the case for the Tide being one of the three best.
Once I reached that conclusion, my ballot was obvious to me.
And you?
Filed under GTP Stuff
Get The Picture 
You must be logged in to post a comment.