Gator Bowl Preview

I don't know about you guys, but I'm still basking in the after glow of the UGA win.  That is about as good as it gets.  I am used to GT finding ways to lose to UGA when we are AHEAD by 13 with 10 minutes left (or something similar).  See: 2013, for example.  We never come back and win in that scenario.  And they even had the ball.  Well, what do you know?  I thought we were the better team on the day anyway.  We largely wasted a chance in the first half to have a decent lead.  Set UGA up with an early fumble in the second half.  But eventually they gave us a couple mistakes back and we made the plays.  Go Jackets.  Can't believe it.

Anyway, on to the bowl game.  Which is the Gator Bowl.  I refuse to call it the Taxslayer Bowl.  Kentucky is a pretty good team.  Which is weird.  But they are.  Statistically though, they aren't very good.  A slightly above average offense and a bad defense.  That doesn't usually add up to a good team (although in fairness, GT is a good offense and a really bad defense, which doesn't usually add up to 8-4 either).  But football is a strange game, that has become stranger, and as this bowl season is showing, bowl games are unpredictable.

What I think (ahem... *think*) we can be reasonably sure about is that both teams will run.  Both are very good running the ball, in terms of yards per carry and yards per game.  GT is considerably more efficient passing the ball, but we pass less often.  Kentucky is sort of mediocre passing the ball.  Defensively we are both miserable at stopping the run.  That's probably worse for GT though because my working theory is that our running offense is so unusual that an opponent's pass defense is a better predictor of its ability to defend us (thinking logically, we attack space downfield, stress the linebackers and secondary, and nobody knows who will have the ball until the play develops - all of which is more like passing than traditional running).  Fortunately, Kentucky's pass defense isn't any good either.  So we should be ok whether my theory is correct or not.  Our pass defense is actually mediocre (statistically), believe it or not, but I'm not really confident in that unit.

I expect points, although, and stop me if you've heard this before for a GT game... not many possessions.  Both teams will run the ball and neither should get many stops.  So every possession should eat up clock.  This game should look a lot like GT-UGA.  I give GT the slight edge but its a toss up.  I'll pick Tech to win, 31-28.

As always, let's go Jackets!