Black Team Wins: End of World? (And other G-Day Musings)

First of all, I mentioned earlier this week a trend in the past five G-Days where, generally, the more points scored, the better the season later that year. Actually, the trend best correlated with the number of points scored by the Red (or winning) team, but in general, high-scoring games led to better years.

2009: 13 points (16 total), 8-5 record

2006: 14 points (24 total), 9-4 record

2008: 17 points (20 total), 10-3 record

2005: 21 points (33 total), 10-3 record (winning SEC)

2007: 34 points (55 total), 11-2 record.

So with a Black team win yesterday, 17-7, if we count the winning team points, that would make this year a possible 10-3 record season (or similar to 2008, success wise). If we count total points scored (24), we'd end up more like the 2006 season with a 9-4 record (and a never ending quarterback carousel throughout the first half of the year).

As I mentioned before, however, in that past five year span (and as long as I can remember), the Red team has won the game. I knew coming into Saturday that the QBs would be swapping back and forth on each team, so I figured this could be a problem for the usual Red win. And it was. So now I'm not really sure how to apply this game to the mysterious trend. Maybe it doesn't apply at all. Or maybe the Black team winning the game will lead to serious, unforseen consequences... creating some type of bizarro Bulldog season. Maybe it's like crossing the streams in Ghostbusters, an act that could potentially bring an end to the world as we know it.

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Other G-Day Musings:

-I've seen a few people on the messageboards declaring this G-Day "boring." I only have one question to ask in reply to this. Were you at G-Day last year?

-Although the defense was barely showing anything in the scrimmage, I feel like they were getting at the QBs more than usual at G-Day games. There were seven sacks in the game, and many other times the quarterbacks were running for their lives to avoid the dreaded two-hand touch of doom.

-Speaking of sacks, how many times did a defensive rusher push the QB and let off, assuming they got a sack, only to see no call from the refs? Yeah, there probably could have been at least ten total sacks if called. Maybe more.

-On the QBs: Now this makes things interesting, doesn't it? For months, the general consensus has been "Murray is the clear-cut favorite, he'll definitely be our starter," and after one spring game (unsurprisingly) that banter has changed to "Murray sucks, Mettenberger is the best."

Mettenberger definitely looked very good, and Gray did a good job too with his time, especially in the first half.

My first thought was that this was essentially the 15th practice of the spring. There were 14 other chances for the QBs to show what they've got, and honestly, no one has any idea of the whole picture of how they've performed so far (except for the coaches).

We can look at their total scrimmage stats (although these are also highly unofficial), and I was going to do that, but the Master, David Hale, is too quick for me. It looks like Mettenberger did the best in all three scrimmages. But that still doesn't account for every practice, or what exactly the coaches saw from each player.

Also, after watching the game again later on TV, Murray didn't look nearly as bad as people are saying. His largest transgression was the pick he threw right at Marcus Dowtin, and after watching that again, I'm not sure if he was trying to throw the ball away to an (assumed) empty spot on the field, or if it was possible that after switching from the white to red-jerseyed team he thought Dowtin was a receiver. The commentators seemed to thing he was trying to dump it to the fullback, who was clearly tied up about 4 yards to the left with a defender. Either way, it was a bad pick and likely brought a collective sigh out of the crowd.

His other error was overthrowing about three deep passes, which, honestly, happens sometimes. How many times does Stafford continue today to overthrow those? At least it's better to overthrow than underthrow on the deep routes.

Other than that, Murray looked pretty good to me. Most of his passes were on target, and he was the victim of a few drops that other QBs didn't see as much. Even on the last drive of the game, he threw a nice one to Orson Charles at the end zone who couldn't haul it down. It was thrown a bit too high, but it was catchable, and if caught would have been an amazing pass and catch for a great finale to the G-Day game (and think about it: if Murray had ended the game with a touchdown drive all the way down the field, do you think people would be thinking Mettenberger is the clear winner?).

The biggest reason why people are down on Murray is because he didn't deliver where the fans care most: deep passes and touchdowns. Other than those glamorous moments, most fans don't pay much attention to form, movement, decision-making and release on those shorter-yard gains.

Basically, there are plenty of other things from this spring that only the coaches know about, which will help them to make their decision on the temporary depth chart to be released soon. But as Coach Richt reiterated many times in yesterday's press conference, we have the whole summer, and plenty of fall practices and scrimmages, before the first game. The QB battle is no where near complete.

It should also be noted that he says the starting QB in game one (not Mettenberger), will have a huge advantage to be the starter in game two. In other words, if whoever (Gray or Murray) starts in game one does a really good job, they'll likely get to start the next game, and keep going as long as they can continue to prove that they're the right guy.

Still, I can't help but wonder if we're going to see two or all three quarterbacks significantly this fall, at least through the first few games (similar to 2006). Hopefully if we do, it won't be a 2006-esque season.