Georgia

You might have noticed no blog post for last week.  Gave myself the week off.  Figured everybody knew what to expect against Alabama A&M anyway.  The Clemson game was worse than I expected, but after reviewing the game I think Clemson just played great.  Our offensive output was pretty good considering the quality of their defense, and our defense actually played OK in my opinion.  They just made some great throws and catches.

This week is absolute chaos from a prediction standpoint.  The computer rankings and predictors that I follow mostly have UGA winning by about 3 points, and give GT a 30-40% chance to win.  All things considered, I'll take those odds.  Preseason I would have been ecstatic to learn those would be our estimated odds.  However, I say its "chaos" because the computers make the predictions by evaluating all games played with equal weight.  UGA played many games this season not at full strength.  The biggest specific injury was Gurley.  With him they nearly beat Clemson at Clemson and did beat South Carolina.  Without him, they lost to Vandy and lost to Missouri at home by a couple touchdowns.  He is the kind of transcendent player who definitely changes the game.  He changes the way you defend UGA.

Adding to the chaos is Murray's injury.  First, I'd like to say that I'm sorry for the kid.  As much as I hate him and hate UGA, I would not wish that type of injury on anybody.  A torn ACL will possibly affect his draft status and NFL career.  Hopefully he will make a full recovery and get a fair chance in the NFL.  (Full disclosure: I would have wholeheartedly supported and even celebrated a lesser injury like a minor sprained ankle, that would keep Murray and/or Gurley out for just the GT game.  But this is different and I really do feel bad for him).

UGA's computer rankings are based on Murray's presence.  The computers do not know how, and in fact don't even try, to account for his absence.  So when they say UGA is supposed to win by 3 points, that is based on Murray playing, believe it or not.  Of course, its also based on Gurley playing half the games.  So the computer rankings are based on having Gurley 50% of the time and Murray 100% of the time.  UGA will in fact have Gurley at full strength but no Murray.

The Vegas line opened at 3, which is actually consistent with the computers but for the wrong reasons.  The spread is lower than it would otherwise be to account for Murray's absence.  I think it would have been somewhere like 8 to 10 with Murray.  Of course, Vegas has no idea how much to account for that either, as nobody really knows what to make of Mason.  I'm sure he is very talented.  Richt has shown the consistent ability to recruit very talented QB's and develop them.  Richt has the reputation as a good coach, and I think he is actually underrated.  He is an offensive guy and I think his strength is coaching quarterbacks.  So we can expect Mason to be a good player and know what he is doing, but its always tough to predict how a guy will respond to his first start.  Mason has been at UGA a while but only played in garbage time against UL Lafayette, Vandy, Idaho St (all 2010), Coastal Carolina, New Mexico St, and LSU (all 2011), and Appalachian St. and Kentucky (this year).  Only LSU would be considered even a mediocre team (obviously they were great but everyone else was well below average).  And that LSU game was a blow out anyway.

So this week will be the first meaningful snaps of Mason's career.  The first time he has ever taken a snap in a game that was still in doubt.  So that makes his performance very tough to predict.  I expect he will do pretty well.  Obviously I don't think he'll play as well as Murray would have but I don't think he'll play poorly.  The important thing to note, for this game and our defensive game plan, is that I expect Richt to try to make Mason's job as easy as possible.  I expect a steady does of Gurley, then some Gurley then more Gurley, and lots of play action.

Problem is, Richt is a good coach.  He will know that we expect the above, and Richt loves to run play action when he knows the other team expects run.  One of his favorite play calls is the deep ball on 1st and 10 whenever he is backed up to his own 1 yard line.  (As the offensive coordinator for FSU, he scored a 99 yard TD on Clemson in 2000 with just this play call - don't ask me why I remember this, I have personal problems.  He also hit a long TD this year on North Texas, and attempted this play on the safety against Florida.  Apparently Muschamp had that scouted as he sent a corner blitz - ordinarily a strange play call on 1st and 10 with the opponent at their own 1 yard line.  That call only makes sense if he expected Richt to run a play action pass.)  All of that is just to say that I won't be surprised if Richt runs a play action fake on the first play of the game and goes deep (or early in the game if not the very first play).  He knows we will expect Gurley to run early and often.  He might go for the jugular immediately.  Hopefully Roof knows Richt's tendencies and will guard against this somewhat.

UGA's defense should be a lot easier to predict.  To my knowledge their defense has not suffered many injury issues.  So their performance over the season should be a reasonably good indicator of how they will play tomorrow.  And their performance has been mediocre.  The computers I follow rank UGA's defense around 50-60th best nationally.  For the year they allow their opponents to score about a half point over their season average, although they do hold their opponents about 25 yards below their average (I excluded North Texas and App St. from this analysis because their season averages are created by playing teams far, far worse than UGA, and thus don't paint a real accurate picture.)  Our total offense averages are 420 yards and 31 points (excluding the FCS opponents Elon and Alabama A&M to be consistent).  So I think we can expect about 400 yards and 30 points if we play well.  We will need to avoid the turnover and penalty issues that have plagued us at times this year.   But if we do we should be able to move the ball and score on this defense.  This UGA defense is closer to 2009 and 2010 than the past 2 years.  I am more excited about this game than I've been in a while for precisely this reason.  I'm tired of watching us play a UGA defense loaded with NFL players, where 20 points is a really good offensive effort.  This defense may have some guys who will eventually make the NFL but they are not at that level right now.  So we won't have to be hoping against hope that our defense can shut down UGA.  We could potentially win a shootout against this UGA defense.

As explained in detail above, their offense will be tough to predict.  I think Mason plays well and they still score a bunch.  But it will be interesting to see if we can limit Gurley.  Roof's philosophy is to take away the run and try to make the other team one dimensional.  Can we take away Gurley even if we load up against the run?  Probably not all the way but maybe we can slow him down.  I'd rather make Mason beat us.  At any rate, I expect UGA to score at least 30 as well and maybe 40.

Bottom line - I think we can win but we will need the offense to play well and we probably need to win the turnover battle.  I expect a 38-35 kind of game if we win, and a 42-28 type of game if we lose.  Even with the injury problems, the computers (ranking based on efficiency and adjusting for quality of defenses faced) rank UGA's offense as a top 5 unit this season.  They are a really good offense.  Obviously, Murray is a key component of that so my prediction that they score a lot is based on Mason being close to that level.  Nobody really knows but we'll find out soon enough.

Go Jackets!

Clemson

The Pitt game was at least impressive in that we won without playing terribly well.  At least without playing well on offense.  The defense was impressive.   The overall performance got more impressive when Pitt beat Notre Dame last weekend.  Notre Dame is a good team and a good defense, and Pitt gained over 100 yards more on Notre Dame than on us.  I'd like to give us a lot more credit for Pitt, but then again they did lose to Navy the week before.  Looking at their record as a whole, they are a decent team, so an 11 point win when we did not really play that well is somewhat impressive.  I would still prefer to play well, but winning anyway is nice.

The Pitt game makes two weeks in a row we have done enough to win without really playing our best. The computers continue to think we are a pretty good team.  Most have us around #30, but I've seen us as high as #10 and as low as #40.  Ten seems a little ridiculous, without a real marquee win and with a series of losses to good but not great teams.  But it is sort of puzzling why the unbiased computers rank us as highly as they do.  All year long I've had the sneaking suspicion that we are capable of playing better than we really have (except the Syracuse and possibly Duke games).  I wonder if we are due for a break out game?  If so, I would prefer it comes against UGA, but Clemson would also be nice.

This should be an interesting game.  Both teams have been fairly inconsistent, both are much improved on defense, and both are the type of offenses that depend heavily on execution.  All offenses depend on execution (all of football depends on "execution" if you want to take it far enough).  But these two offenses mores than others.  Clemson is more dependent on Boyd finding the right WR and making a good throw and catch.  We are more dependent on making the right option reads and the right blocks.  But the point is either team can play well and just annihilate somebody, or struggle and barely beat Boston College, NC State or UVA.  That fact makes this game a little more unpredictable than most.  But here goes anyway.

Clemson is much improved on defense.  The past couple of years their defense was mediocre at best.  This year, the computers I pay attention to (some of which rank defenses and offenses in addition to teams overall) have Clemson's defense in the #25 range nationally - quite a bit better.  Clemson's offense is generally regarded as its strength (and the past two years it has been much better than the defense).  Its national rank, using conventional stats like scoring per game, is higher than the defense.  But the margin in closer than you'd think (#15 versus #23).  However, Clemson's hurry up offense results in more possessions and more plays per game, for both teams.  Meaning it inflates offensive numbers for both teams.  Several times this year Clemson has played games with 17 or 18 or more possessions.  GT averages closer to 11, for reference, and most teams average 12-13.  Efficiency stats tend to rate Clemson's offense and defense about the same, roughly #25.  Clemson's offense is anywhere from #15 to #35 depending on where you look.  Overall, I would say their offense is not quite as good this year, which makes sense given the loss of Hopkins, Ellington and Ford.  They are still good on that side of the ball but are a much more complete team now.

Fortunately, so are we.  In years past we have had a similar profile to Clemson - mediocre to bad defense but good offense (albeit probably not quite as good on either side).  This year we are in the #30 to #35 range on both sides, and strangely a top 25 team in special teams.  (the various computer rankings I use for these numbers adjust for quality of competition).

This game is actually close to even on paper.  Clemson would be favored by perhaps 4-6 on a neutral field, at least according to these computers.  At Clemson the spread of 10 is probably about right, but remember the inconsistent nature of both teams means just about anything could happen.  We have only two common opponents (we did better against Syracuse but barely and we were at home, they did better against UVA by a good margin) so that favors Clemson but being only 2 games, does not tell us much.

If we are going to win, I think we need to move the ball steadily and control the clock.  Clemson likes to use its hurry up offense to get into a rhythm, prevent the defense from substituting much, and get the defense tired.  If we can control the speed of the game and make the game closer to 10 possessions, we have a good chance.  Clemson's offense is not as overwhelming as it once was, and our defense is better, which should mean we can get a few stops.  However, if we are going to move the ball, I think we will need to attack the perimeter.  Clemson's front seven is better than its secondary, and the secondary is not very good at run support.  We'll need to block up front just well enough to force them to respect the dive, even if we don't hurt them there very much.  Then I think you'll see a lot of rocket tosses, and speed, load or counter options, because the B-Back blocks and there is no dive option.  So those options guarantee the play attacks the edge.  If we can have a lot of success attacking the interior we might have a very good game, but I think thats unlikely given that Clemson's front is very good.

If Clemson is able to get stops and create a fast game with lots of possessions, they may win easily.  Our defense is good and I think it matches up well with Clemson (we are probably better suited to defend speed than power) but consistently getting stops against this offense will be tough.

Overall, I think the defenses play better than expected.  Which will favor Clemson slightly because it will result in higher possessions.  But we move the ball well enough to slow the game down somewhat.  I'm thinking 13-14 possessions.  Below Clemson's average but well above ours.  And Clemson gets a close, hard fought win, something along the lines of 31-24.

I hope I'm wrong.  I think we can win and it would be nice to get a signature win this season.  But Clemson is favored for a reason.

Let's go Jackets!

Pitt

I still can't believe we actually won that game.  With a minus four turnover margin,  And we somehow let UVA gain 450 yards.  But, as I said, I'll take any win.  I'm ecstatic with a 10 point win on the road given the turnovers.  Good teams are supposed to be able to win playing ugly.  We could not do it against VT, BYU or Miami.  Its nice to finally get the job done, even if UVA is considerably worse than those teams.

On to Pitt.  Pitt has been an incredibly inconsistent team for several years.  The ACC has been an incredibly inconsistent conference for several years.  So of course, as soon as Pitt gets into the ACC, they become strangely consistent.  Go figure.  Their results this year pretty much all make sense.  They probably should have lost to Duke on the road (in hindsight - still hard to get used to Duke being pretty good.  They may finish the year as one of our best wins.  Although I think they are a little overvalued in the computers right now due to the VT upset, and they'll come back down in the next few games).  The road loss to Navy was a mild upset but all teams go through ups and downs.  Most experience higher highs and lower lows than Pitt has so far.

They are the type of team we typically beat under Paul Johnson.  Not unlike Syracuse.  Mediocre, not a pushover, but they are probably less talented than we are across the board, and don't have any particular unit that scares you too badly.  We'll be at home and I'm not usually afraid of being out coached and beaten with lesser talent.  They do have a monster defensive tackle who is excellent.  His name is Aaron Donald and you'll probably hear it called many times tomorrow.  But the rest of their front seven is not at that level, and anyway Donald did not seem to give Navy too much trouble.

There is the irritating factor that they played Navy last week and thus got an extra week to prepare for our offense, and got to see it at full speed.  I don't worry too much about teams having bye weeks (based on my analysis last year, it does not appear to give the opponent any significant advantage).  But the full speed part may help.  Having two weeks instead of one when your own scout team is the only prep you have is different than having a week of practice, playing a game against the real thing, and then having another week of practice.  Navy runs our offense a lot better than Pitt's scout team.

Of course they lost to Navy.  They may be better this week than they were last week, but we have better talent than Navy by a good margin.  I think we should be fine, especially if the defense continues to play well.  One issue I am concerned about is Pitt's offense.  They are not particularly good, but they are much better passing than running.  They are 35th nationally in passing efficiency, and just 90th in yards per rush.  Our defense has played well this year, but its been a lot better against the run, and somewhat vulnerable against the pass.  We are 61 in pass efficiency defense, and 40th in yards per rush allowed.  This is consistent with Roof's normal philosophy, which emphasizes stopping the run.  Pitt is a fairly good passing offense with two excellent WR's.

If we can contain their passing attack this should be a comfortable win.  If we don't turn the ball over we should also win pretty comfortably.  If we do both, we might win by a lot.  But this is definitely a losable game.  I hope the players are not over confident due to Pitt's Navy loss, or because we've won two in a row.  Beating UVA and Syracuse is hardly a reason to think too highly of ourselves.  And this game is crucial for bowl eligibility.  And is homecoming and a night game.  So I assume we will come out and play well, and win without too much trouble.  But Pitt is not a pushover.  I hope we are ready to play.

Go Jackets.