The Georgia Game Preview

I'll be honest with you all. Ever since I moved to South Carolina, I haven't watched more than 5 minutes of a Georgie game other than Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate. So, I find myself digging to find information on the dogs for the preview annually. Statistically speaking, it's tough to really break down the dogs carry attempts because of injuries to Mark Richt's forever cursed tailback position. It seems like every season Richt has two to three guys that are constantly rotating in the backfield and it makes tracking trends fairly difficult.

On the pass catching side, however, Richt always sticks to his guns with the old school split end, tight end, and flanker. Aaron Murray has found four different receivers around thirty times this season in freshman Malcolm Mitchell, freshman Michael Bennett, junior sensation Orson Charles (TE), and crusty old Tavarres King. In fact, since 2007, the dogs have had at least three guys with 20 receptions on the season. The interesting thing, to me, is how counter intuitive the stats are. You'd think Orson Charles and Tavarres King would be the reliable veterans but Murray is actually more efficient throwing to the two freshmen. It may be similar to Clemson's Sammy Watkins in that they go with safer, higher completion type plays with the Mitchell and Bennett. And the nice thing about these stats are that Mike Bobo hasn't really looked at them as neither freshmen appears to have increased his looks per game as the season progressed. Bobo just keeps hucking it at either Tavarres or Orson.

Sadly, the dogs are one of those schools that doesn't really care about fans manipulating their play-by-play logs for blogging purposes so I can't really surmise too much more from their stats. I think the big thing we need to look at with regards to Georgie is their perceived strength versus their actual strength of schedule. Their 9 game winning streak has come at the expense of Coastal Carolina, 6-5 Florida, 5-6 Vandy, 5-6 Tennessee, 4-7 Kentucky, 5-6 Mississippi State, 2-9 Ole Miss, 4-7 New Mexico State, and pay-for-play 7-4 Auburn. I would be disappointed if Tech didn't go 9-0 against that band of misfits.

Prediction
I'm taking Tech. To Hell with Georgie. The day I pick the dogs in anything is the day Paul Johnson stops running the triple option. Tech wins 30-24. What do you think happens?