Georgia is 7-0 SU and 5-1-1 ATS in their last seven meetings against Georgia Tech. Lay the points on the Bulldogs this afternoon when they host the Yellow Jackets.
We started the college football regular season by having a lot of success taking the SEC against a vastly inferior ACC when the right pairings were available, and what better way to spend a Saturday than by not only revisiting that particular concept, but also using an annual series that has provided meat to put between our bread many times?
Here is the gist of this one – Georgia has won seven straight against Georgia Tech, going 5-1-1 ATS in the process, and beating the pointspread by a combined 65½ points over those games. How do the oddsmakers miss such a series by an average of 9½ points per contest over such a span? Because basically we get the same layout each time – the previous two months Georgia Tech is taking on much inferior competition than Georgia, and it sets up perceptions that just do not match the true realities of the gap between these programs. It is the same again here, and with the marketplace helping to drop this one into our laps we can step in again.
The Yellow Jackets have adapted better to Paul Johnson’s offensive schemes than we thought that they would in his first season, but some of that has to be taken with a grain of salt – they were playing in a weak conference, and most opposing defenses were seeing these designs for the first time. Now they not only have to face a Georgia defense loaded with athleticism up front, but it is also a defense that has two full weeks to prepare for those tactics, including a chance to sit back and watch Tech on national television last Thursday night. That helps not just tactically, but the fact that the Yellow Jackets were blowing out Miami also fully alerts Mark Richt’s squad to the challenge that is at hand.
Not only does Georgia bring the defensive tools here, but that outstanding corps of skill players can make plays vs. a defense that has not seen anything near this class of offense all season. The emotions will run particularly high on the Bulldog sidelines, because we are being told that this will be QB Matthew Stafford’s last game between the hedges.
Stafford, Knowshon Moreno and the rest of the cast can exploit a Tech defense that will be without key LB Sedric Griffin (their third leading tackler), and S Dominique Reese, and while the Jackets do hope to have Jahi Word-Daniels back in the secondary, he has missed the last four games with a hamstring injury, and his timing will be an issue.
Free Pick: Georgia -7½ (-103)