Uneasy lies the SEC East crown.

At least in the minds of some…

Our guest @MichaelWBratton has given us 3 BOLD predictions for this upcoming FB season:

– SCAR will defeat UGA in Week 3
– It will be Top-5 undefeated matchup on Oct. 1st between ALA & ARK
– TENN will battle UGA for SEC East crown

Which one is most likely to happen? Why?

— Paul Finebaum (@finebaum) May 9, 2022

I take it BOLD means pulling something completely out of your ass.  It’s like talent accumulation over the past four seasons accounts for little.

Of course, that’s just some talking head trying to stir up chatter.  What, though, to make of an SEC assistant coach who says this?

… At the end of his appearance on Kentucky Sports Radio today, Marrow reflected on Kentucky’s performance vs. Georgia in recent years. The hype for the 2018 game vs. the No. 6 Bulldogs in Lexington was huge, but the Cats lost 34-17. A year later, Kentucky got shut out 21-0. In 2020, Georgia won 14-3. Last season, the Cats scored two touchdowns vs. the No. 1 Bulldogs in Athens, which no other team had done at that point of the season; however, costly errors led to a 30-17 loss.

“In [2018], we were not ready for that game,” Marrow said. “But when we played them last year and went down there, I’m telling you, our guys went in and we were not — we really thought we would win that game. I don’t think you remember, but we had three field goals blocked. Wan’Dale [Robinson] drops the touchdown pass and then we missed the field goal on that and then we had two more field goals blocked. So we lost 30-17. I’m just telling you, if we picked that fumble up — the one they said wasn’t a fumble — that’s a different game because now they’re only up by three and we’re going into halftime.”

Apparently, some reminders about that 2021 game are in order.  First, here’s ESPN’s win probability chart:

Georgia’s win probability never dropped below 90% that day.  I guess that “if we hadn’t fucked up so much, we could have made the game closer” line of thought didn’t have much impact on the numbers.  A couple more statistical morsels:

• Georgia’s yards per passing attempt:  12.5.  Kentucky’s yards per passing attempt:  4.6.
• Georgia’s yards per rushing attempt:  6.1.  Kentucky’s yards per rushing attempt:  1.9.

And let’s not forget that the ‘Cats closed the game out with an epic 22-play scoring drive that lasted almost eleven and a half minutes, cutting the final margin to 13 17 points.

Somehow that gets you to the stuff that dreams are made of.

“This year — again, you take every game [seriously] — but I think it’s gonna come down to that game. November 19. Here. The second to last game. It’s gonna be cold, probably. Kroger Field’s gonna be rocking. It’ll be cold. It’ll be a good time to play some football.”

And how?

“The strength is our quarterback. I think starting with him, we return three starters on the offensive line. Our tight ends are back, which is a very talented room. All of our running backs. Receivers.

Wow.  Lucky for Marrow Georgia can’t match that.

I’m beginning to think this season’s vibes are gonna be a little weirder than usual.

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