There are few teams in the country right now as confusing as Vanderbilt.
After starting the season 2-0 with huge wins over Middle Tennessee State and Nevada, the ‘Dores very nearly pulled the upset in South Bend with a narrow 22-17 loss at Notre Dame. So that’s all well and good, there’s no shame in being 2-1 for Vandy, but then they got schooled by South Carolina and escaped a contest against Tennessee State in which, as Vandy head coach Derek Mason said, “football becomes secondary.”
On a secondary note, there is some good news. There are reports that the young man who was injured in last week’s Vandy vs. Tennessee State game is doing much better.
As for Vanderbilt, though, who knows what to expect from them? You think you’d have a pretty good handle on your opponents by week six, but Vandy has shown too many different faces to really grasp who they are.
Are they a really good team that just fell short in a huge road game against a traditional power? Are they a struggling team that will fall short in the conference yet again?
Even those wins over MTSU and Nevada look suspect to some, but those were big wins on the scoreboard. That’s not the kind of win that Vanderbilt would normally pick up. Sure, they would probably beat those teams, but not by so wide a margin.
When you break down the athletes and the stars, you can make many of the same arguments that you could for Tennessee. Kyle Shurmur has more passing yards on the season than Jake Fromm does. Lead running back Ke’Shawn Vaughn has about as many yards as Elijah Holyfield with three more touchdowns. Kalija Lipscolmb, Vandy’s top receiver, has almost 200 more receiving yards than Mecole Hardman and two more touchdowns.
“You know, I like Vandy’s chances this year.” (Photo via Telegraph.co.uk)
So a blind analysis of the two teams could yield some positive touchstones for Vandy, sure, but then you hit the same wall you did with Tennessee: depth.
The reason that these other teams have stars with more yards and more touchdowns than Georgia’s stars is because those guys are the best on their team by a wide margin. For most of Georgia’s top guys, the margin between them and the next man is minimal, if it exists at all. Holyfield isn’t demonstrably better than Brian Herrien or D’Andre Swift. In Swift’s case, there is an injury that has held him back. Outside of that, right now Holyfield just has the hot hand and is the flavor of the week. Any other cliches you want?
He’s the cat’s pajamas and the bee’s knees.
Same story for Hardman. He has to split reps with an insanely talented core of receivers like Terry Godwin and Jeremiah Holloman and Riley Ridley. Factor in exceptional tight ends like Isaac Nauta and Charlie Woerner and you realize why other teams can catch up to and surpass Hardman on the stats chart.
Even the starting quarterback is having to split reps. It’s just that kind of situation.
After the messy win against Mizzou where everyone complained about how well the Tigers ran against Georgia, people were afraid that our defensive line had gone weak.
So how do we feel about the fact that Tennessee only picked up 2.6 yards per carry last week and only rushed for 66 yards total?
The majority of Mizzou’s yardage against us came because of the scheme. We had committed that Drew Lock was not going to beat us, and he didn’t. He failed to pass for more than 250 yards and had no passing touchdowns. That’s a phenomenal performance against a likely future first-round pick.
Yeah, it would be great to say we’re going to key in on the pass and still dominate the line of scrimmage so well that a team can’t run the ball well against us, but a team with that kind of offensive imbalance welcomes a dedicated pass coverage. That’s what we did.
Then we did the opposite for Tennessee. They were such a run-heavy team that we committed to stopping the run, and we did so very well.
Tennessee only had 209 yards of offense against the Dawgs last week. They are averaging 360 yards of offense after what we did to them.
The defense is fine.
In fact, as far as scoring defense goes, the Dawgs are tied for fifth with just 13.0 points allowed per game. According to ESPN, UGA has the most efficient defense in the country. We have a whopping .4-point lead over Bama in that category.
So is there a real threat from Vandy?
Shurmur is 29th in the country for passing yards. That’s clearly better than most, with 1,231 yards to his name so far. He also has nine touchdowns through the air.
That’s good, right? Sure, Shurmur has an arm. But when you look at rating, he isn’t even better than average. Shurmur rates out at a 140.9 for pass efficiency, which sounds high, but he ranks 59th. That’s about 20 spaces below Lock and Feleipe Franks from Florida, and about 15 short of Jarrett Guarantano from Florida.
By the way, Fromm is sixth in that category.
Shurmur can be dangerous, but not against a good defense. And Georgia is easily the best defense the ‘Dores have seen thus far.
Can Vandy be a problem for Georgia’s offense? I doubt it.
You can protest all you want that Mizzou and Tennessee proved problematic for Georgia’s offense, but that’s not really true. We were our own problem. Two weeks in a row, now, the Dawgs have looked rusty on offense. Passes are missing their targets, blocks aren’t there, defenses are getting through the line and stripping the ball.
These are problems, but these are not forced errors. These are almost all unforced errors, and they are things that we have to get better about.
Leading up to Tennessee, head coach Kirby Smart said, “We’re focusing on us.” That has to be Georgia’s attitude while these errors abound. With some of the weaker opponents we’ve faced in the first half of the regular season, Vandy included, that’s not a problem.
“Really? Kentucky is a threat? Get outta here!” (Photo by Melanie Dretvic on Unsplash)
Looking ahead, though, we’ve got some tough cookies coming up: LSU in Baton Rouge, the Gators, Kentucky. Seriously, Kentucky. They’re 5-0.
But take a look back at the South Carolina game. That was a hostile environment against an upset-minded team that had the personnel to make us sweat. And everyone sweats in Columbia, SC because oh my word, that place is hot.
Even though that was the second game of the season, I imagine we were specifically planning for South Carolina.
That’s not to say that we literally didn’t game plan for Mizzou or Tennessee, obviously we did, but I think South Carolina is the last game we played where we were one hundred percent focused on planning for that game and getting that opponent down to a science.
And it was a huge win. One of the biggest the Dawgs have ever had in old Willy B. Stadium.
If we look a little shaky at times against Vandy tomorrow, I’ll certainly be worried.
They only allow 20.6 points per game so far this season, even if that does include a Notre Dame team before making a crucial quarterback change, so they can at least slow some people down.
But we are averaging more than two additional touchdowns per game in total scoring, and we’re holding opponents to a whole touchdown less than what Vandy is. If you want to pretend that there’s some one-to-one math in there, then we should win by three touchdowns.
Honestly, I’d be a tad bit disappointed if it was only by three touchdowns.
Last Week’s Picks
Dang it, Guarantano. If not for a stupid personal foul against Georgia last week, I probably would have gone 2-1. I very nearly went 3-0, but our offense couldn’t get loose for a lot of big plays.
The Vols will not complete a pass more than 20 yards downfield. (This is not counting YAC, just where the catch is made compared to the line of scrimmage.) If not for two huge touchdown passes, I would have had this one. WRONG.
Georgia will hold Tennessee to less than 3.0 yards per carry. As previously stated, Tennessee ran for just 2.6 yards per carry. CORRECT.
At least three ball carriers for Georgia will have gains of 25 yards or more. Nauta had that nifty “run” for 31 yards, and both Swift and Fields had runs of about 15 yards in the last four minutes, but it wasn’t enough. WRONG.
My score prediction wasn’t too far off. I went with 45-6, which ultimately was only one point off the final total. Sure, I had a touchdown wrong in each direction, but that’s fine by me.
Three Picks and a Score
Like I said earlier, I have a hard time getting a grasp on Vandy, so I don’t expect much quality from this week’s picks. Take them for what you will.
Vandy will fail to gain more than 13 first downs.
Georgia’s three leading rushers will average 5.0 yards per carry or better.
Shurmur will throw two interceptions and less than 250 yards.
Dawgs win 45-10.