And one more statistical comparison

You may remember Max Olson’s stop rate metric ($$).

What is stop rate? It’s a basic measurement of success: the percentage of a defense’s drives that end in punts, turnovers or a turnover on downs. This simple metric can offer a more accurate reflection of a defense’s effectiveness in today’s faster-tempo game than yards per game or points per game.

He only includes games against FBS opposition in his rankings.

Last year’s Georgia defense was pretty hot shit.

Georgia’s defense finished No. 1 with a stop rate of 84 percent over its 15 games and 83.4 percent against FBS opponents, the best we’ve seen in our five years of tracking this statistic.

With a stop rate of 73.2%, this year’s defense is 22nd.  That’s still good (“Last season, the top 25 teams in stop rate went a combined 257-78 (.767). Sixteen of them won 10 or more games, and six won conference titles.”), but not otherworldly.

One other thing of note — and, if you’re Kirby Smart, it’s good news — is that Georgia is only allowing 1.14 points per drive, which is good for eighth nationally and second only to Alabama in the conference.

Moar ’21 vs. ’22 stats

Marc Weiszer throws up few more statistical comparisons between Georgia’s 2021 and 2022 seasons here.  On the positive side, a few that caught my eye:

–Rushing offense: 197.5 yards per game in 2022 from 197.2 in 2021

–Scoring offense: 39.5 per game in 2022 from 39.8 in 2021.

–Passing yards per game. The Bulldogs are about 85 yards better at 320.3 this season from 235.3 last season.

–Red Zone offense, Believe it or not, Georgia has improved from 86.2 last season to 97.2 this season. Georgia is scoring touchdowns at 66.7 percent in the red zone, up from 58.6 percent last season.

–Total offense. Georgia is putting up 517.8 yards per game, up from 432.5 last season.

So, contrary to what we’ve thought, rushing yardage isn’t in a state of decline.  It’s just that in comparison to the jump in passing yardage, it feels that way.

And one negative development of note:

–Red zone defense. Opponents are scoring 77.8 of the time this year compared to 62.5 last season. When it comes to touchdowns scored by opponents in red zone, it’s at 33.3 percent after 12.5 last season.

I guess the defense is bending and breaking a little more than last season.

Hey, Knoxville! Thanks for having us.

“The rat poison you put out there this week was yummy.”

Nick Saban loves being an underdog 😂 pic.twitter.com/uK2iVkEmHg

— SEC Network (@SECNetwork) December 5, 2021

Let’s just say I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if ‘Bama jumped out to a 21-0 lead after the first quarter.  Not saying that’s gonna happen, of course.  Just sayin’.

2022 Mumme Poll, Week 6

And so it begins.

303 voters.  The average number of teams on a ballot was 11.  88 teams received at least one vote.

Here is our top 25:

Ten teams finished on at least half the voters’ ballots, with six of those appearing on over three-quarters of the total.

For comparison’s sake, it’s too early for the selection committee’s version, of course, so we’ll have to settle for the AP top 25.

Pretty respectable overlap there.  We’ve omitted Utah in favor of Coastal Carolina, but other than that, the lists are fairly similar.

The most impressive thing about the balloting remains how efficient we are with time.

And that’s with the average ballot containing eleven teams, remember.

Unsurprisingly, we favor the SEC.  A third of the total votes went to teams in that conference.

Another thing that has remained consistent is the percentage of voters from Georgia.

Way to go, you three international voters!

The rivalry question turned out as I expected.

Yep — the team we most want to see Georgia beat, followed by the team we hate to see Georgia lose to the most.  And zero votes for the ‘Cocks.

That’s all I’ve got for now.  Have at it in the comments.

It’s Todd Monken’s world, and we’re just living in it.

If you had this on your bingo card before the season started, my hat’s off to you.

https://twitter.com/jontweetssports/status/1580011486453592064

Meanwhile, Georgia’s top two rushers are nineteenth and twentieth in the conference in yardage.

Zero

Now, this is funny.

Rian Davis, who wears No. 0, said Darnell Washington, who also wears No. 0, calls him “Little 0.”

— Anthony Dasher (@AnthonyDasher1) October 11, 2022

And he’s the only one who could get away with that.

Here comes the (bye) weekend.

Your injury update heading into the Vandy game:

Tuesday evening injury updates from Kirby Smart: pic.twitter.com/T1yNW254v3

— Seth Emerson (@SethWEmerson) October 12, 2022

My advice:  take two weeks and get ready for the Florida game.