Two things are for certain: LSU and Alabama will play in the BCS National Championship Game and UGA’s Defense is awesome. The Georgia Defense has come such a long way from the latter days of the Willie Martinez regime and Bryan Evans’ reign of terror. The defense is the best its been in years, and now when the offense leaves the field, it is fun again to see this unit wreck havoc.
But, watching the national media, it seems that they are-shocking-not giving the Dawgs proper credit. I watched College Gameday and saw Herbie, when talking about the UGA defense, throw up a graphic showing all the bad offenses we have played during the 9 game winning streak (made no mention of how the defense did well against South Carolina). When discussing the Dawgs on Gameday Final, Mark May said that UGA wouldn’t face a running game like LSU had. I guess Marcus Lattimore, Michael Dyer and whatever Georgia Tech has doesn’t count Mayday.
To those detractors, I have this to say, and excuse the French: Bullshit.
Alabama, LSU and Georgia have played 5 common opponents. 41% of our “weak” teams have also played LSU and Alabama. LSU played Kentucky so if you include that, 50% of the teams on our schedule LSU played also. But for the purposes of this discussion, let’s just look at how UGA, Alabama and Georgia compare on defense. Now, LSU does have trips to the Jerry Dome against Oregon and to Morgantown to face WVU. I won’t bang on LSU. But Georgia played ranked in the top 10 Boise State and ranked Georgia Tech out of conference. What about you, Alabama? Don’t hate on UGA’s schedule when LSU and Bama have played similar crappy teams!
I looked at the ESPN.com boxscores for each of the games, and have Teams A, B and C listed below. I also highlighted who “won” that category for that game. Check in the comment section for the key. But if you take away the team and just look at the stats, you’ll see that UGA compares very favorable to what LSU and Alabama did against the same competition. You can’t help who you play, you just have to go out and TCOB. And Georiga has done that. (NOTE: I got this idea from listening to Chris Brame on 960 the Ref, so I can’t take sole credit for this idea, only the research)
Check the first comment for the key.
Corbindawg
The Grit Tree 
Team A: Alabama
Team B: UGA
Team C: LSU
Sorry if it is hard to read, insterting a picture of this size is tricky, but you get the point.
Nice post. The meme can not be refuted. “UGA played nobody” is firmly implanted into the national consciousness. Winning on Saturday will not completely change the conventional wisdom. “UGA got lucky” will be added to the monologue.
Well done. Shows ESPN bias.
UGA D is for real.
Sure we all beat the crap out of bad teams. Did LSU or BAMA play USC? Can we see those stats?
No, they didn’t. The East teams Bama played were Florida and Vandy.
The East teams that LSU played out of turn were Tennessee and Kentucky.
Georgia dominated South Carolina on offnese, and the defense did a decent job of containing Lattimore throughtout the game until the 4th Q and we can all agree the defense is not the reason UGA lost to South Carolina.
A Georgia win would silence the critics, and put Georgia in the National Championship conversation. LSU, is a team that has beat 7 ranked teams, if Georgia beats them, they’re a better team than LSU & Bama, because they would have beaten LSU, and Bama couldn’t do it. How could you say Georgia hasn’t played anybody if they beat the #1 ranekd team in the country? And the computers will love Georgia, because only 2 losses were to top 12 ranked teams.
Florida only played 2 ranked teams in 2009, and NONE in 2006.
ESPN’s 2007 ANTI UGA rant was “how can you play n the National Championship if you can’t even win your own conference?”
You can’t take that position in 2007, and then go 180 to your own position in 2011 because it’s Georgia both times?
If Georgia beats LSU, bye bye LSU & Bama. Can’t even win your own conference.
What really grinds my gears about Herbstreit’s comments on college game day is that they’re just contradictory. In one breath he said that if you beat anybody in the SEC, which is a very competitive conference, you deserve a bid at the National Championship (he said this regarding Alabama). Then in his next breath, Herbstreit critized Georgia that their defensive numbers are impressive until you look at their schedule.
Which one is it, Herbie? When defending Alabama, you said that if you beat SEC teams, you’re a solid team. But when criticizing Georgia, you say they had a weak schedule, even though their schedule was an SEC east dominant schedule. That just doesn’t make sense to me. It works both ways, in my opinion.
If the Dawgs win, “LSU wasn’t trying because they are already in,” will also be added to the WWL’s narrative.