During our second preview episode for this weekend's game (which you can find here), Graham and I were talking about the aura that Bama football has had, and the psychological impact of that aura on the Kirby Smart Era. I pointed out that it reminded me of a scene from Catch Me if You Can, where Christopher Walken, an experienced con-man, says to his son Frank - a conman in training, “You know why the Yankees always win, Frank? It’s ‘cause the other teams can’t stop staring at those damn pinstripes.” I think this is the effect that Bama has had on this Georgia program. I’ll spare you the Lakers/Bama/Yankee fans joke, but the fact is that, whether we acknowledge it or not, the Dawgs have been caught staring several times at those stupid crimson helmets in the past two decades.
What does this have to do with numbers that matter? Well, I believe that the source of that aura now works the College Gameday desk instead of the sidelines in Tuscaloosa. Based on what we know about Kirby, I’m pretty sure he’s got this team ready, not just to play a good game, but to see past the pinstripes and the man who created them. But I’m not so sure that we as a fanbase have gotten the images of 2012 (or 2017, or 2023, etc.) out of our heads. I’ve seen a certain class of Dawg fan this week that treats as fait accompli that we’ll lose this weekend. Despite the statistics that show this as a close game, and the ball knoweres (read: Graham) who think UGA can take advantage of this Tide team in a way their previous opponents have not been able to, some of us can’t seem to get the image of a slightly undersized man with crossed arms staring glumly at a field where his team just beat the Dawgs by 10, or 3, or 12, or 100. We’re still staring at the pinstripes.
There’s a sense in which I get it. This is a program that is – like so many would-be dynasties – chiefly defined not by its moments of triumph, but the depth of its disaster. While my gen-z cohost Yara hasn’t been scarred enough to know about all of this yet, most UGA fans my age and older can tell you about the failed promise of Quincy Carter, losing Todd Gurley over a couple of autographs, or being shafted in 2007 by Kirk Herbstreit.
So why am I talking about all of this in a statistical preview? Because I need us, if we’re going to be smart football fans, to get past the pinstripes. Let’s think about the context we find ourselves in today and over the last 6 months, not over the last 35 years. Let’s start that discussion by talking about how we make predictions more holistically.
Making predictions in the general sense is about more than just math. (And thank god for that, I haven’t taken a math class since AP Calc.) Rather, it’s about narrowing down an infinitely complex set over variables into a few relevant considerations, and making inferences about what they mean given what we historically understand. In other words, it’s about figuring out what matters, and why it matters.
While it is true that numbers matter – and don’t worry, I’ll get to numbers soon – it’s also worth talking about the context that we find ourselves in today. This Georgia team came into the year with one of the most talented teams in the country, probably the best active FBS coach, and an experienced QB with a bevy of talented but unproven skill players. Through three games, this team has beaten a flawed but talented team with fringe playoff aspirations, evaporated an FCS team in the most conservative way possible, and underperformed against a conference opponent in a classic Kirby Smart road opener. The defense is shaping up to be the best performing D since 2021 (seriously, I think we’re sleeping on them), but has some key players on the backside of nagging injuries. The offense is talented, but has performed poorly.
So what do we do with that information? What matters more to us? The pre-season predictions and our evaluations, or the raw data from a bad performance? This isn’t a question I can answer with any precision. If I could, I wouldn’t have a job as a public school teacher, and I’d probably be doing more betting than one work pool a year. But what I can go back to is the priors that our model, CBCR2, uses to answer that question. And that brings us, at last, to the first of our numbers that matter.
4
CBCR2 currently sees UGA as being 4 points better than Bama on a neutral field. Our model sees this, when taking everything into consideration, as about a two point Georgia win. This makes it a little bit of an outlier in terms of predictive metrics. SP+, for instance, has this as a 2 point bama victory. The reason for this is that our model more heavily weights our preseason numbers over in-game performance. We do this because, given that CFB is a low-sample size sport, which it is, our model doesn’t yet think we have enough data from games played to fully assess what each result means in the aggregate.
2.8
As in the number of sacks we predict Bama to allow. It’s a poorly kept secret that this Tide line has been inconsistent through three games. Injuries have caused some shuffling on the line, and tackle play in particular has been consistently inconsistent. What intrigues me about this number is that we see it as being an area where UGA has a significant advantage. CBCR2 predicts that Georgia will only surrender 1.7 sacks. While that isn’t a huge gap, one more explosive play can radically alter the outcome of a close game.
264.4
The number of yards we predict Carson Beck to gain through the air. This is another place where we predict UGA to outperform the boys in whatever-color-crimson-is-supposed-to-be. In my mind, this is CBCR2 seeing what Graham has talked about several times this week: while he has improved, Jalen Milroe is still more of a threat as an improviser and a runner than as a passer, especially in short-to-intermediate range. Given Kirby Smarts consistent track record of preventing explosive plays, forcing Milroe to drive the field on 5 – 10 yard chunks could be a successful strategy for the Dawgs.
176.2
How many rush yards we predict Alabama will gain. We see this as an area where the Tide has a slight edge. I put this on the list because I’m interested to see if the Dawgs can reverse the prediction. To this point this year, it’s probably most charitable to call the UGA rushing attack inconsistent. But the pieces are there. I think one of the key indicators of a successful day for the Dawgs will be if they can put all those pieces together and out rush the Elephants.
Ultimately, I feel like this is gonna be a close UGA win. That opinion will probably change at some point this weekend, but I’m writing it down now because I think it’s important for us to start treating this Alabama program as what it is and not what it was. They are talented, but they’re not as talented as they were at their peak. They have proven, talented coaching staff, but Nick Saban is gone. They’re still the school that rich kids from the North go to if they do too many drugs to get into a bad Ivy, but that’s not relevant to this paragraph, I just hate them. At some point, no matter how good your numbers are, psychology matters. And while I’m not a really superstitious person, I think we’d be better served as fans to take on the Kirby Smart mindset, and let go of the Larry Munson one. Let’s stop seeing the replays of 2nd and 26, and the Tyler Simmons blocked punt. Let’s stop thinking of Bama as the boogeyman, and start seeing them as who they are. Let’s treat this team like what it is to a UGA program on the hunt: dangerous prey.
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