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| Richt's Dogs won't be overlooking Johnson's Jackets |
Yesterday, I heard a talk-radio host speculate if the Bulldogs might be overlooking Georgia Tech this Saturday for their game against Alabama the following week...
Yeah, yeah, we've all heard it before, particularly from the wishful-thinking North Avenue Nerds.
You may doubt Coach Richt on a number of things, which many of us have done the last several seasons, but something that can hardly be questioned is his success against the Eternal Enemy. Richt has a spectacular 10-1 record versus the Yellow Jackets after head coaches Goff and Donnan combined to go 7-5 against them.
What's more, Richt's teams normally play even better against Tech than the so-called experts forecast, covering the spread in 8 of the 11 contests.
And, as far as the same situation as this upcoming Saturday -- Georgia facing the despised Jackets after having already clinched the SEC East with the conference title game still looming -- Richt's Bulldogs have been perfect in four attempts, exhibiting no signs of "overlooking" Georgia Tech whatsoever:
2002: 51-7 win as a 8.5-point favorite
2003: 34-17 win as a 10-point favorite
2005: 14-7 win as a 5-point favorite
2011: 31-17 win as a 4.5-point favorite
That's 4-0 with three games being won with little difficulty and relatively easy covers. In all, it's four victories by an average of nearly three touchdowns and an average cover of a whopping 13 points.
If the past is any indicator for the upcoming game against the Jackets, I think Richt will undoubtedly have his troops focused on Georgia Tech and, speaking of 13 points, Georgia's 13-point spread for this Saturday is destined to be covered.
2 comments:
One minor correction. In 2003 we had not clinched the spot in the SEC Championship game when we played Tech. We started the Tech game 6-2 in the conference. UF was 6-2 and playing FSU later that day. UT was 5-2 and playing Kentucky. Since we lost to Florida and beat UT we would have lost the tiebreaker to UF if Kentucky had beaten UT. Since UT beat UK the SEC East had a 3 way tie. The tie-breaker came down to BCS ranking. We needed FSU to beat UF and us beat Tech so our BCS ranking would be higher. The UF versus FSU game kicked off after our game with Tech was over. Odd year. The SEC East representative was decided based upon one conference game and two non-conference games.
Anon,
For the most part, you're absolutely correct. My mistake. It hit me later today after I posted that Georgia had NOT clinched the SEC East entering the GA Tech game in '03 because of the very reasons you provided.
The Bulldogs were odds-on favorites to represent the East (Georgia and Tennessee were both relatively heavy favorites and the Florida-FSU result was likely not going to matter much. It was assumed entering that Saturday that even if Florida defeated FSU, the Gators most likely would not have been ranked the highest in the BCS standings); however, Georgia going to the SECC was not an absolute certainty.
Thanks for reading and your correction.
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