As I sat home last Saturday night, flipping back and forth between Kansas State-Baylor, and Oregon-Stanford, I thought wow, there is no way both these teams will lose tonight. Now, I did feel like Stanford had a team that could give Oregon fits, but figured with the game at Oregon, the Ducks would win. I had watched Stanford against Notre Dame and also against Southern Cal and come away impressed with how they play. I believe Stanford plays football in their conference as close to the way an SEC team would play in that conference, solid run game, good defense and steady play at QB. As I watched that game, I kept thinking, this game IS going the way the Cardinal want it to go, low scoring, and that defense is having its way with the high powered offense. Flipping back to KST, I knew Baylor came into the game with a high powered offense but a HORRIBLE defense. I also knew that they were 4-5, 1-5 in their conference but they were at least playing at home. Still, KST had played a pretty good schedule and although they had Texas the next week, surely they could beat Baylor, I mean RG3 is not QB at Baylor this year. After I watched half of that game, I figured it was as good as over. It was just one of those games where you sensed it was Baylor's night, reminded me of our game with SCarolina this year, just seems there are sometimes a game or two where everything goes against you, while all goes right for the other team. KST experienced that against Baylor. So, knowing that BCS #1 and 2 had lost, while #3 Notre Dame had won as well as #4 Bama and #5 UGA, it left me wondering, WILL we move ahead of those two and be #3-sure enough Sunday night that did happen. What that means of course is simple, we win against GTU and Bama (assuming Bama beats Auburn), UGA WILL play for a national title in Miami on January 7th. Yes, the same UGA team that got embarrassed in Columbia, SC, 35-7 on October 6th, 3 months almost to the day could play for a national title.
First things first, we have to beat the pesky insects, inside Sanford Stadium this Saturday. Now, GTU comes into this game on a 3 game winning steak. They have whipped Maryland, North Carolina and Duke after suffering their 5th loss of the season against BYU. Now, while they have been rolling up points and wins against those three ACC teams, we need to also realize, Maryland is 4-7 on the year, 2-5 in ACC play. Their wins this year, against William and Mary 7-6, Temple 36-27, Wake 19-14, and Virginia 27-20. Their offense has scored more than 20 points only 4 times in 11 games this year, course Tech faced a converted LB playing QB against them. UNC, they are 7-4, 4-3 in the ACC. Wins against Elon, East Carolina, Idaho, VT, Miami, NCST and Virgina, losses against Wake, Louisville, Duke, and GT. Duke, they are bowl eligible, but look at their wins-Florida International, NC Central, Memphis, Wake, Virginia, and NC. Losses to Stanford 50-13, VT 41-20, FSU 48-7, Clemson 56-20, and GT 42-24. Can you say NO DEFENSE for the Blue Devils, WOW!! Not like we have played powerful teams down the stretch-but UF, Ole Miss, even AU, and GSU, would have a fighting chance against those three ACC powers. Tech will also play for their conference title, with a 5-3 record since Miami self imposed no bowls this year, VT is having a dreadful year, UNC also can't go to a bowl, that basically leaves that division up to GT and Duke and GT beat Duke last weekend to essentially win that division-again, WOW!
I am concerned about this GT game though because of all the BCS talk. We can't afford to come out and ASSume a victory against this group. While they are not the most talented team Paul Johnson has brought to Sanford, that would be his 2008 team that beat a very talented UGA team I might add, this team IS good enough to beat UGA if we don't take this game seriously, commit turnovers and penalties. All we have to do is look at just one week ago, the game I mentioned above-KST against Baylor. Course that game was at Baylor while we host the Nerds, but still, it proves that a team that has an offense and gets rolling, can cause a team problems. Once things start going bad against this option style offense, you can get in trouble. Why, because this offense is designed to chip away the clock, essentially play keep away. You have to make stops and get your offense back on the field. All this being said, I can't help but think that us playing a similar offense in Ga Southern last week will at least help a little bit in controlling this offense. Let's face it, we have as close to an NFL defense as just about any team in college football. Just take a look at our starters for a minute on the defensive side of the ball-
DE Garrison Smith-will be an NFL player IMO
NT John Jenkins-potential to be 1st rounder
DE Cornelius Washington-pro potential
OLB Jarvis Jones-potential #1 overall pick
OLB Jordan Jenkins-will be a #1 pick IMO
ILB-Tree-will be a 1st round pick
ILB-Hererra-has NFL future
CB-Swann-has NFL future
CB-Smith-COULD make NFL roster
S-Shawn Williams-NFL player
S-Bacarri Rambo-NFL player
Also, Kwame will play pro ball and so might Abry Jones, as well as a few others that are not getting major reps yet.
You would have to figure if this group can just focus on doing their jobs, we can stop that offense enough to win the game. Our offense, if Murray is on passing, we should be able to score 30+ on the Tech D, considering we have scored 30+ in every game since UF, and the Tech defense is not any better than Ole Miss, AU or Ga. Southern. This is where Murray's leadership needs to come into play, and the OL needs to block and give him protection as well as give our backs some running lanes. Murray needs to play like he has from the second half against UF up until now.
One thing I have noticed over the past several games, with AU being the lone exception, we are not playing great football in the first half-that has really been an issue for much of 2012. That being said, we play VERY well after the break. The thing about this week is, we have to play solid from the start, build a lead and make them try to play catch up, which that offense is not designed to do. I will be curious to see if Johnson tries to throw the ball more having Vad Lee this year, a kid that Techies have been drooling about for two years now. He is a better pure passer I have been told than is Washington but still doesn't run the triple option as well as Washington. I expect they will go with Lee pretty quickly against us figuring the only shot they have is to be more verstile on offense, if we prove to be shutting down the option that is. It all comes down to execution though, we are more talented but that doesn't matter if our guys don't do their jobs on defense-I think they will.
Assuming we get the win against Tech, of course no one will give us any chance against Bama, but I do think we have a good shot, if Murray is given time and doesn't wet the bed. But I will discuss that next week. I hope our guys have learned a valuable lesson from watching these top teams get beat-first it was Bama two weeks ago at home, then KST on the road, finally Oregon at home, you have to be ready to play at all times or you can and will get beat. GTU would love nothing more than to ruin our season, we were very similar to them in 2009, they were 10-1 at home and we were 6-5, we went over to Atlanta and beat those guys. It can be done if our guys don't prepare and play football how our coaches are teaching them. I am worried but also confident our boys know how much is at stake, they will fight the good fight and beat the Nerds on Saturday.
My prediction this week is based on a few things-first, the Tech defense is not very good. Second, our defense will be the most talented group Tech has faced this year, and the games where they have faced a decent defense, they have had trouble. BYU statisticially would probably be the best D they have faced this year until our game, they lost at home 41-17. Get this, they only had 157 total yards in that game-117 rushing. VT they lost with only 288 total yards. Also if you look at Tech's passing game, it is really amazing-Washington and Lee are a combined 82-143 for 1,505 yards, 10 TD's and 4 INTs. That is an average of 137 yards per game passing, which is actually higher than I thought it would be but still very low. Add to that the health of Tech's best back-both rushing and receiving in Orwin Smith-he is scheduled to play but he has an ankle injury-he might play a few plays and tweak it, plus they do have bigger fish to fry the next week so they might hold him out. Anyway, I just believe we have a HUGE talent gap across the board this year, I actually think our talent gap on them continues to grow as long as Paul Johnson hangs around, so I just think we will win this game and be right there along where the spread is set, maybe a tad higher. These games have been close during Richt's tenure, we have had a few blowout wins but most are within a TD or 10 points. I think this year we score 38 and Tech scores 21.
I hope you all have a HAPPY THANKSGIVING, next week I will post about the upcoming SEC title game and might throw in something about the mens hoop team. I have some opinions there so might take the time to write next week or just wait until after the SEC title. Anyway, hope everyone has a great holiday with family and friends. GO DOGS!!
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