“Both of these teams have their flaws and both teams play hard.”

Georgia and LSU played three common opponents down the stretch — Florida, Auburn and Texas A&M.  Secstatcat breaks down the stats from those three games.  It’s not as pretty as we’d like, to put it mildly.

Looking at the defenses first, LSU’s mostly outperformed Georgia’s in these three games. But the Dawgs have the edge in perhaps the two most important stats – albeit barely. UGA allowed a lower TD Rate and surrendered less explosive plays. Again, explosive plays consist of runs of 10+ yards and passes of 20+. Scoring and preventing points, winning the turnover battle, and outperforming your opponent in explosive plays are the big three areas that often determine the outcome of ballgames. Despite the fact LSU was better down-to-down, generating Havoc plays, and forcing three-and-outs, Georgia had the preferable numbers against those three opponents. Still when everything is taken into account, it’s hard not to give LSU the hat tip. Though UGA was better at curbing scoring and big plays than the Tigers, their edges are slim.

Offensively, it’s no contest. LSU was far an away the better offensive team against Florida, Auburn, and TAMU. Both Throwing and Rushing, the Bayou Bengals outdid the Bulldogs down-to-down, were more potent scoring, had less negative plays, a drastically smaller Three-and-Out Rate, and were considerably more explosive. Even though the Havoc Rates were similar, LSU still had a better clip than UGA’s. Remember, all three of these defenses finished within the conference’s top 6 units against SEC offenses. Georgia was clearly affectedly negatively and LSU appeared to not bat an eye.

Will this play out based on conventional wisdom presented or will the old adage come to fruition? Offenses win games, but defenses win championships.

He makes a good point in his conclusion about turnovers — the way this game turns into a rout is if the Dawgs go minus-2 in turnover margin.  Jake needs to keep that interception streak intact, big time.

Run, Georgia.

Gary Danielson, somewhat surprisingly, doesn’t think Jake Fromm is the key for Georgia’s offensive hopes tomorrow.

“There’s one player that has to have a good game for Georgia, and that’s D’Andre Swift,” Danielson said. “I don’t see how Georgia can stay in this game without the breakaway abilities of Swift. He’s the real deal. I think Swift is the key to the game. 

“Jake Fromm is going to show up fine. Their receivers are going to be what they are – they’re not game-breakers yet. D’Andre Swift has to be a difference-maker in this game.”

Josh describes what difference making has to look like.

On the other side of the ball, UGA’s offense tries to get back on track against a defense that can give up yards on the ground. In SEC games, LSU is allowing over five yards per carry. In addition to that. Using secstatcat.com, I was able to filter out their opponents inside runs and discovered that the Tigers are allowing over six yards per carry on these runs.

If you’ve read any of my posts of late, you know that these runs are UGA’s bread and butter, but have not been productive of late. But, on UGA’s 20 TD (against Power 5/non-GT) scoring drives, UGA ran the ball 2:1 with 75 of the 103 runs using inside zone or inside zone reads that averaged 4.9 YPA.

There it is, when the Dawgs run the ball in the middle with success they score.

So, don’t wince when they try that.  😉

Well, if you’re looking for a stat to hang your hat on…

This one ain’t half bad.

– Since 2000, the team with the higher ranked defense has won 14 out of 19 SEC Championships.

– Since 2000, when the SEC's #1 defense has played in the SEC Championship, they are 8-0. https://t.co/IfuJ3FiCeK

— Matt Klug (@MattKlug33) December 3, 2019

And here’s the thing — Georgia has to play great defense because of the way its offense is built.  And vice versa.

“You’ve got to play good football to win, period,” Smart said. “I don’t know that the adage ‘defense wins championships’ stands up as much as it used to. When you saw scores from the ’60s and the ’70s and the ’80s, it was indicative of defense compared to now. Now, it’s like, ‘I got to play pretty good defense and I got to score a lot of points. I can’t play horrific defense. I can’t play bad defense, but I might not have to be perfect,’ is the way a lot of teams have had success. They probably take more chances and risk and they just score tons of points.

“An explosive offense allows you to play a certain way on defense too, because you know that you’re going to score a certain amount of points. Sometimes that changes things. But you go over the history of the last 10 years, there’s still been some really good defenses that have won national championships. The Alabama ones, the Clemson ones. A lot of them get overshadowed by really good offenses, but there’s been some good defenses winning.”

…

“Right now, it’s hard to argue with the success that Kirby’s had,” said former Bulldogs quarterback Eric Zeier, who works as an analyst on the school’s radio network. “I think what would dictate change would be how we perform in a game like the one we have coming up on Saturday. I will say this: The style of offense you play can dictate how you look and how you feel on the defensive side of the ball, as well. At Georgia, you’re practicing against big and physical teams constantly. When you start to spread it out and open things up, that’s what you see every day. It’s a little bit different mentality, and I think it affects how your team functions and what its identity is.”

Call it an impose your will question, if you like, but tomorrow’s game comes down to which team can take the other out of its comfort zone.  Can Georgia’s offense chase Joe Burrow and Company if the Dawg defense can’t slow them down?  Can LSU’s offense prevail in a real slugfest if both of Georgia’s lines control the action?  Stay tuned.

Chicken soup for James Coley’s soul?

Boy, this is some stat.

LSU is allowing 6.1 YPA on Inside Zone rushes. 8 rushes of 30+ yards on Inside Zone Runs. 8% of all inside zones go for 30+ yards. #SECChampionship

— DawgStats (@Dawg_Stats) December 5, 2019

You know, a team with an inside running game could make a living exploiting that.  Just sayin’.

Cold shower time

My Gawd, Bill Connelly’s advanced box score for the Georgia-Georgia Tech game is sexually arousing.

Outside of turnover margin, the game was a complete wasteland for the Jackets.  Just about every conceivable break went Tech’s way in the second quarter, and it still finished with a 28% success rate.  And a 0% success rate in the first quarter!

Hubba hubba.

Check, or checkmate?

Those of you who don’t want to hear about stats — hayull, man, college football is all about which team wants it more, amirite? — can skip this post.  The rest of you ought to take a look at Max Olson’s latest on stop rate ($$).

Particularly as it relates to a couple of teams you care about this week:

One point we’ve mentioned in this space before that feels worth reiterating: LSU is definitely not playing bad defense. Do not be fooled by the yards it allows (35th in FBS in total defense), and don’t even fret too much about the number of explosive plays it’s given up (57th in 20-plus yard plays allowed). Because the truth is, Dave Aranda has this talented group playing efficiently. The Tigers rank 17th in stop rate at 74.8 percent, and they’re getting off the field in three plays or less on more than 40 percent of drives.

The more fascinating matchup to watch in Atlanta, though, will be Georgia’s defense trying to stop the unstoppable LSU offense. The Bulldogs haven’t given up more than 20 points in a game this season. They haven’t allowed 300 passing yards or three passing TDs in any game, either. They’ve forced the fourth-most punts in the FBS. Kirby Smart is going to have answers for LSU, and it’s going to make for one heck of a chess match.

For comparison’s sake, at 85.6%, Georgia is second in stop rate and, at around the same percentage as LSU, 14th in three-and-out rate.  It is going to make for one helluva chess match Saturday.

Unstoppable, meet immovable

Something’s gotta give Saturday.

Explosive play rate differential
1 Clemson, +8.98%
2 Bama +7.74
3 OhSt +7.37
4 Bay +6.76
5 UGA +6.74
6 Utah +6.69
7 Okla +5.64
8 Mem +5.52
13 LSU +4.54
25 Mia +2.32
33 FSU +1.9
60 A&M +0.21
61 VT +0.18
94 UVA -1.92
96 GT -2,16
102 BC -2.6
112 WF -3.43
122 Cuse -4.3
126 Duke -4.46

— 💫⛵️✌️🌵💫 🚧🗼👢📧 (@ADavidHaleJoint) December 3, 2019