Now that the cupcake is out of the way, it's time to start with some protein.
You guys like chicken?
As much as I want to be the overly-cocky (pun intended) fan going into Saturday's SEC opener, playing in Willie B. Stadium is always more difficult than it should be. That stadium elevates a lesser team to mediocrity and a mediocre team into something approaching relevance.
If South Carolina is actually good, then that stadium can make them dangerous.
The Dawgs all-time are 50-18-2 against USC, jr., which sounds great, but we're also just 20-10 in that city. So overall, UGA has a 73.5 winning percentage against the Gamecocks, but just 66.6 percent in Columbia.
More importantly, three of those 10 road losses have come since 2010 (2010 - 17-6; 2012 - 35-7; 2014 - 38-35).
It's easy for Georgia fans to say, "Oh, those losses were under Mark Richt, they don't count anymore." Okay, but Kirby Smart lost there as the defensive coordinator for the defending national champion Alabama team in 2010, too. That was a Nick Saban-coached team that ran into a surprisingly difficult challenge on the road in Columbia. That was a Nick Saban-coached team that would very nearly knock off the Cam Newton-led Auburn Tigers.
Now the most important thing to mention about those three losses is not the coaching change on Georgia's sideline. It's the one on South Carolina's.
Steve Spurrier was the most hated, and perhaps most prolific, Bulldog-beater of all time. He was public enemy number one in Athens for the better part of three decades.
He's retired.
Were Spurrier still at the helm, I would be much more nervous. We've gone from a Bulldog-beater to a guy in Will Muschamp who is pretty underwhelming in his record against his alma mater. Muschamp went 1-3 against UGA while the head man at Florida, and should have been 0-4, including while the head coach of a second-ranked and undefeated Florida team that couldn't even find the end zone against Georgia in 2012.
Since moving to SC, Muschamp is winless against the Dawgs, albeit in just two attempts.
That's not to say that Muschamp's team can't beat Georgia. His last two tries were valiant efforts, including the closest margin of victory that Georgia produced in the conference last season. Out of the Dawgs' 13 wins, only Notre Dame's one-point loss in South Bend was closer than South Carolina's two-touchdown deficit in Sanford Stadium.
Being just the second game of the season, this SC team still has their star players on the field. Possible All-American Deebo Samuel was already out due to an injury when the Dawgs hosted the Gamecocks last year, and the deep ball was certainly our biggest weakness last year.
This picture still applies. (Photo by Sydney Sims on Unsplash)
You don't need me to recount the painful reasons why that's so obvious.
In a big win against the mighty Chanticleers of Coastal Carolina last Saturday, Samuel had seven catches for 56 yards and one touchdown. Those are not eye-popping numbers, especially since he had a long of just 15 yards against a team that is arguably one of the worst at their level of play.
The longest pass play South Carolina had against the Chants was just 27 yards. That's not great. How do you expect to be explosive against a defense that is just one year removed from a national championship game run when you can't even exploit an obviously out-manned opponent?
That being said, it is entirely possible that South Carolina was doing the same thing Georgia was. We could have easily ran explosive play after explosive play against Austin Peay last weekend, but that would have just served to keep the defense on the field even longer. The time of possession was split remarkably evenly between UGA and APU, with Georgia holding the ball for 26:59 and Austin Peay holding it for 28:01.
Fun fact, ESPN says the Governors held the ball for 33:01, but the game was shortened by five minutes and someone clearly did not know how to account for that fact on their stat cast.
You have to wonder if anything can really be gleaned from South Carolina's stats against the Myrtle Beach Sand Roosters, as they were probably being much more strategic with their game plan than they were just trying to score.
I fully expect Samuel to have more targets and more meaningful touches against Georgia than he did a week ago.
Then again, I also fully expect the Bulldog secondary to key in on him and make those meaningful touches harder to earn.
I want to share a quote by Georgia junior corner J.R. Reed with you now, and then I'll tell you why this quote actually gives me a lot of confidence:
“They kind of remind me of our team with the receivers, running backs, and smart quarterback they have. They have really big receivers and they have a lot of speed. Especially from what you see from Deebo (Samuel). He is a very big and physical receiver. He is one of the top wideouts in the SEC. Jake Bentley reminds me a lot of Jake Fromm. He is very smart, a great competitor, and will play really hard out there for his team. It’s going to be a good game. We can’t make any mistakes back there in the secondary, but as long as we stay in communication, we’ll have a great game.”
Quote from UGASports.com
The reason this quote excites me is because I don't think South Carolina can beat Georgia by trying to play like Georgia. Georgia has every advantage in personnel, talent, coaching, you name it. When you try to beat a team like that by being that team, your odds decrease significantly. The only real advantage that South Carolina has in this game is home field, and that is a big one for them.
Mind you, Reed isn't entirely accurate. South Carolina's Jake Bentley is likely going to throw the ball a whole lot more than Fromm will. Not because he's better. Oh, no. Just because South Carolina's run game isn't as strong as Georgia's. In the last two games against Georgia, South Carolina has picked up 73 yards. Total. Over a period of two years. That's 120 minutes of football.
Now some of that total is deceptive due to huge losses on some key plays, but even so, South Carolina earned just 30 net yards rushing in 2016 and 43 net yards rushing in 2017.
They will live and die by the air attack against Georgia, and overall this season, which means they approach the game far differently from UGA's run, run, run, run, run, run, pass mentality.
How I miss that man. (Photo by Larry Wynn)
The 2017 Gamecocks averaged 123.0 yards rushing and 337.9 yards passing per game. The 2017 Bulldogs were more balanced with an average of 258.4 yards rushing and 176.9 yards passing per game. Even if the key rushing personnel on Georgia's side has changed, that philosophy surely hasn't.
As far as what Georgia needs to have happen offensively, the keys are two-fold. First, Fromm has to maintain the football. He's been great at that in the past, even if he did seem to have one "freshman moment" in each game last season, so I don't really expect a ton of problems there. It's not like he's never played in a hostile environment on the road in the SEC before. Second, the four-headed monster at running back needs to have a head emerge as the front runner.
While it's great for fresh legs and depth to have so many talented backs, one of those guys needs to step up and be "the man" this time around. We need to know who the lead guy is who can really challenge opponents. They all need playing time, they all need to show up and do great things, because they're all capable, but someone needs to really take the lead and make themselves known.
Right now, my expectation is that Swift will ultimately be that guy, even if he isn't that guy against SC. But Holyfield or Cook or Herrien can also fight for that spot.
Seriously. We were so blessed. (Photo by Larry Wynn)
I admit that having a sole leader at running back isn't nearly as important as having a sole leader at quarterback, you have to have that guy at quarterback, but having one man you can rely on at running back is a blessing. The two-man tandem of Nick Chubb and Sony Michel was a rarity in college football, as great as it was.
I hope to see one man take over that role as the leader with the other three guys providing ample solid support.
If you take the stadium out of the equation, Georgia should win this game by 20 points or more. The talent differential is noticeable and heavily favors the Dawgs. However, you can't ignore environment. South Carolina is going to be an immense challenge for the Dawgs and this team had better be ready.
Of course, with all the public hype leaning towards an SC upset, I'm pretty sure that this team will be ready.
One last note about this game before taking care of other business, I am so glad that it's the second week of the season. As much as it terrifies me to be playing this game so early, I love the traditional UGA football schedule. One of the biggest advantages SEC football has over some other conferences, namely the ACC, is that you can plan your calendar around the SEC for years in advance.
For goodness' sake, the Alabama-Tennessee "rivalry" is named after an actual weekend when it usually takes place. And you know Georgia-Florida is going to be right around the last week of October or first week of November. You know when most of these games are going to be played without seeing the schedule, and I love it that way.
We are likely getting away from that in some regards, since UGA is probably starting the season in Nashville with Vanderbilt in 2019, a team we usually play the week after Tennessee, but I hope we never become like the ACC that just throws games on the calendar whenever they want to.
This past week, FSU and Virginia Tech opened up against each other. But in recent years you've seen Georgia Tech and VT play that weekend, we've seen Miami-FSU season openers. They just don't care.
SEC football is a calendar and a season unto itself, and the schedule treats it that way. When you can refer to something as "Alabama-LSU" weekend without seeing the schedule, that's good for football and good for rivalries.
And that's just one reason why the SEC is better than the ACC. So ha.
Three Picks and a Score
After all of my bombast and mouth-running, it's time to make some picks.
Fromm will finish with a better completion percentage than Bentley, but with half as many attempts.
Samuel will have three times more receiving yards than any other individual SC receiver.
UGA wins the turnover battle 3:1, including a 4th-quarter INT by Bentley.
Now for the score. Even though I said UGA should win this game by 20 or more points, the Dawgs won't have that kind of a cushion. This is a young defense with some young players in key spots on offense, so I'm expecting another 24-10 win over SC. I know that was last year's score, but it wouldn't be the first time Georgia's had the same result against a team in consecutive years. Both the 1980 and the 1981 game against Florida ended with a total of 26-21 Dawgs, even if the 1981 conclusion was a lot less exciting than the finale of 1980.
Reviewing Last Week's Picks
So I did really well with last week's picks, going 2-1.
Eight different Bulldogs scored a TD last week, so that's huge, showing a lot of ability to spread the ball around and make defenses think. I predicted at least seven would, so that's a win!
Austin Peay did not score a touchdown on one of their first three possessions, though I predicted they would. They did attempt a field goal in the first three possessions, but it went wide to preserve the eventual shut-out. No points for being wrong here.
I am most impressed with my third prediction. I said that as many offensive players would have receiving yards as rushing yards. It was exactly 11 on both sides. There were 11 Bulldogs with rushing yards and 11 with receiving yards. That's a win!
To quote Han Solo...don't get cocky. (Photo by Jairo Alzate on Unsplash
My score prediction was really close on the margin of victory, but not really all that close at all. I said it would be 52-10 (42+ diff. for UGA), with the final score ultimately coming at 45-0 (45+ diff. for UGA). The defense held off Austin Peay better than I anticipated, and that's nothing to complain about. Had the heat not been so oppressive, I imagine we would have pressed the issue and scored one more time. Everyone's got to be fresh and ready to go for South Carolina, though, and that's what matters now.