Georgia vs. Texas A&M PREVIEW SPECTACULAR

The game is only 6 days away, so I guess it would be a good time to actually take a look at our matchup versus the Aggies. For our earlier game against Auburn, I decided to compare our two teams in one of the only ways possible: our stats versus common opponents. I admitted that this type of analysis was far from foolproof, and the overall results gave the edge to Georgia. Well, we won that game (even though it didn't look like we would in the first quarter), so I'll call that a success.

So let's do the same with the Aggies. A&M only played 2 common opponents with Georgia this season, Arkansas, and Oklahoma State. Let's start with OSU.

Texas A&M vs. Oklahoma State (L 31-36)

Offense

Total Yards: 382

Passing: 273

Rushing: 109

Defense

Total Yards allowed: 448

Passing: 279

Rushing: 169

Georgia at Oklahoma State (L 10-24)

Offense

Total Yards: 257

Passing: 162

Rushing: 95

Defense

Total Yards Allowed: 307

Passing: 135

Rushing: 172

At first glance, you see that Georgia lost by 14, while A&M lost by 5. I'd say first glances are deceiving. First, Georgia played AT Oklahoma State, while Texas A&M caught the Cowboys at home. That makes a difference, especially when the UGA-OSU game was the season opener. Second, you may remember that Oklahoma State's star receiver (and likely best player on their team), Dez Bryant, was the primary scorer in their defeat of Georgia. Guess who was ineligible and not playing vs. Texas A&M? Dez Bryant. Even without Bryant, A&M's defense gave up 279 passing yards to the Cowboys, while Georgia only game up 135 through the air. A&M also gave up almost an equal amount of rushing yards as Georgia did. Overall, Georgia's defense held up considerably better against the OSU offense WITH Dez Bryant, compared to A&M's defense vs. a Bryant-less Cowboys squad.

But on the offensive side, A&M had a much better game than the Bulldogs. But you may recall a sick Joe Cox at QB, and an injured and depleted RB group (with Richard Samuel and Carlton Thomas at the lead, amazingly). Even with Samuel and Thomas (instead of our now bread and butter King/Ealey combo) we still put up almost as many rushing yards on the Cowboys as A&M did. I'm also pretty sure the OSU game was perhaps our worst offense performance of the season.

I'd like to give the edge to Georgia here, but for the stats sake, we'll say even.

So let's look at Arkansas.

Texas A&M vs. Arkansas (L 19-47)

Offense

Total Yards: 458

Passing: 345

Rushing: 113

Defense

Total yards allowed: 434

Passing: 271

Rushing: 163

Georgia at Arkansas (W 52-41)

Offense

Total yards: 530

Passing: 375

Rushing: 155

Defense

Total yards allowed: 485

Passing: 408

Rushing: 77

Now this one is interesting. First of all, remember, Georgia played this game AT Arkansas while A&M once again had them at home. Georgia also was still with Samuel as our leading RB. This time Georgia's offense was on fire, while A&M's was good too (yardage wise). Georgia's defense gave up more total yards, but that was almost entirely due to our incredibly weak coverage in the secondary. We only gave up 77 yards on the ground, while A&M gave up 163 to the Hawgs. But to be fair, the Razorbacks didn't really need to pass as much on A&M, because they had a huge lead (30-10) at the end of the first half, and I'm guessing the Hawgs could have run up the score (and yards) even more if they wanted to.

So why did A&M have so many yards on offense in this game with so few points to show for it? At first, you might think it was turnovers. But actually, the Aggies had 2 fumbles in the game (and Arkansas gave them three turnovers). You may remember that Georgia had 3 turnovers at Arkansas (while they had 1), and it's likely that we could have won by more if it weren't for those mistakes. So was it penalties? Nope. A&M did have 8 penalties for 87 yards against Arkansas, and that is bad, but Georgia had 14 for 93 yards and still came out on top (and with a lot more points.

Overall, Georgia's performance against the Hawgs was much more impressive than the Aggies', especially considering the development UGA's offense has gone through, with the emergence of Washaun Ealey and new reliable receivers. According to the stats, in the first game, the Aggie D was not as good as UGA's, but their offense was better. In the second game, technically Georgia's offense put up more yards, but defense gave up more. But stats can be misleading. Almost seems like the two teams could be pretty even. But I think the final scores, where the games were played, and what players were playing paints a better picture of which team performed better against common opponents.

Ealey and Charles on ESPN's 10 best freshmen in SEC

ESPN's Chris Low posted a story today listing "the 10 best true freshmen in the SEC," and guess who makes his list? Washaun Ealey and Orson Charles, that's who.

Bad bowl projections or crazy season?

I'm back, thanks to an idea for a quick post. Look back at the preseason bowl predictions from ESPN's experts for 2009. Man, these guys were off (and I'm guessing most everyone was as well).

Only 4 teams that either guy predicted to be in a BCS bowl actually ended up there. Florida, Texas, Boise State, and Ohio State. That's 50%, so... not too bad? But look at who else was projected to be in BCS bowls. Oklahoma, Ole Miss, BYU, Pittsburgh, Virginia Tech, South Florida, Penn State, and USC. A couple of those picks weren't too bad (Penn State, Pitt), but others were wayyy off. Of course we can give people a break for predicting great things from Oklahoma. No one knew Bradford would get hurt so quickly, but still. Ole Miss and USC were particularly bad picks, and vastly overrated preseason, while everyone overlooked Oregon and Cincinnati.

They both had Oklahoma State in the Cotton, but vs. Alabama? Wow. Alabama actually overachieved this year. And probably the worst projection: Neither guy had a 2nd SEC team in the BCS bowls. Whaaa?

And a sad note: They both had Georgia in the Capital One. Could have happened without a crazy ending to the LSU game and a complete implosion at the end of the Kentucky game, so maybe not too bad of a prediction.

SPECIAL Video for Georgia Tech week

It's Tech week everyone. Our season may look pretty bad right now, but it's always great to be a Georgia Bulldog (and not one of those bee thingies).

New Bowl Hopes

Ok, so finally everyone was agreeing that we had a chance to get to the Chick-Fil-A, or even Outback, and then we had to go and lose to Kentucky in bed-wetting fashion.

So what's the deal now?

People have completely lost it with Georgia now, and most are crying and expecting an Independence or even Papa John's bowl to end the season. I don't know if they're aware that this would mean UGA would have to finish 9th or 10th in the entire SEC, which honestly seems impossible at this point (thankfully).

Here's how things are shaping up. Georgia will very likely end up 3rd in the SEC East behind either Tennessee or Kentucky, depending on who wins their game. There is a possibility for Georgia to finish 2nd in the East, but only if we beat Tech and Tennessee wins. 3 teams in the West will surely finish ahead of Georgia, and the rest are questionable.

So for certain, we know that we could at BEST finish 5th in the SEC (Outback Bowl). Seriously. It's possible still, but only with a Tech win and everything else going our way, and the bowl committees choosing us over others (very unlikely). Technically, if Arkansas beats LSU and Auburn beats Alabama, we would end up 8th in the SEC (Liberty Bowl).

If you think about it, a Music City or even Chick-Fil-A are still possibilities. It really all depends on what UGA does at Tech next Saturday, and what happens with a few other teams.

In summary, we WANT Tennessee to beat Kentucky, LSU to beat Arkansas, and Alabama to beat Auburn. We also want South Carolina to lose to Clemson, just to make sure they're knocked out. If everything goes our way, we have a shot at the Chick-Fil-A still. Don't expect it, but we can surely hope for it.

Quick (and late) thoughts after UK

First, some quick thoughts on the game (which I'm sure most of you are trying to get past at this point). My last post is pretty ominous to look at now, isn't it? Although I knew that Kentucky could beat us, I didn't think that they would. Neither did most when we were up 14 points at halftime. Once again, Georgia football is the gift that keeps on giving (to opposing teams). And the biggest giver (other than all of the coaches combined) would have to be Joe Cox. A very generous guy.

Yes, our defense has been very, very bad this year, and most Dawg fans are waiting (im)patiently for Martinez to hit the road. But Saturday's game was actually much more similar to the first few games of this terrible season, where the defense really played "alright," but the offense and special teams wouldn't stop turning the ball over or killing us with field position. 2 turnovers led directly to 14 UK points, and the other 2 basically put a stop to our chance of scoring and tying the game. And the defense did hold strong at the end of the game, where we had plenty of chances, but fumbled them away.

Quick thoughts that have probably been discussed by everyone too much already:

- Fumble on the goal line: Why a toss there? I know coaches have said that it's our "bread and butter play" strangely enough, but isn't a toss on the goal line dangerous in such an important situation? My first thought was: Cox's fault. But now the coaches are blaming it all on the freshman Ealey (of course). Either way, why toss the ball backwards when you just need to surge forward a couple of feet for the TD? The saddest part was that we were only on 3rd down and had 2 chances to push it in, before the toss.

- Cox's first interception: Perhaps the worst pick I've ever seen. It looked like when he got under pressure, he was so scared that he just dumped the ball off to the UK linebacker, almost like he thought he was a fellow teammate who could catch a screen pass. It was almost comical during the game.

- Cox's second interception: In Sanford Stadium, we almost couldn't believe that we still had a chance. The game seemed over after that fumble at the goal line, but our defense stepped up, we actually had plenty of time left on the clock, and we had a great chance to go down and tie the game. The stadium suddenly was back in it and ready to win. And then, on the very first play, a poorly thrown pass. It was almost perfectly bad, and laughable.

Certainly the worst ending to a game I've seen at Sanford Stadium.

In other news: Kentucky could beat us

It seems much of the Bulldog Nation (including myself) were looking at the Auburn game as extremely important. We thought, "Hey, if we beat Auburn, then we'll beat Kentucky, and have a good shot to beat Tech after Thanksgiving. What a great way to end the season!" Then, we did beat Auburn, and people are thinking, "Now we have our easy game against Kentucky before we go to Atlanta." I was thinking the same way - until Monday, when I looked up the Wildcats to see how they've been doing this year.

In case you didn't know, Kentucky has the same record as Georgia at the moment (6-4). And guess what? The games they lost were, for the most part, very respectable. Yes, they did get blasted 41-7 by Florida (UF's biggest win over an SEC opponent this season), but Georgia didn't have the best game against the Gators either. Then, UK put up a respectable fight against Alabama, a game which they lost 38-20. No other SEC team has put up 20 points against Bama this year (LSU managed to score 15). At South Carolina, the Wildcats lost a nailbiter 28-26, which isn't bad, considering Georgia pulled out a close one against the Gamecocks in our 2nd game this season at home. Finally, Kentucky lost another close one to Mississippi State, 31-24, and we all know that the Cowbell Bulldogs have stayed in games with LSU and Florida. Oh, and by the way, Kentucky beat Auburn, at Auburn, by the same margin we did.

Then, you look at the stats. Kentucky is actually ranked ahead of Georgia in numerous categories. They're 9th in total offense in the SEC (Georgia is 10th), 5th in rushing offense (UGA is 11th), 4th in pass defense (Georgia is 11th), and their kick returner Derrick Locke is currently the best in the SEC.

So when you look at it, Kentucky is a real threat to the Bulldogs on Senior Day. They aren't like Vanderbilt this year, and they certainly aren't a guaranteed win for UGA. We need this win to get to a good bowl game. Win, and the Chick-Fil-A, maybe Outback, can be ours. Lose, and we're looking at a possibly dismal 6-6 season with a trip to one of those undesired bowls.