Welcome to The Morning Five, in which we distill the coming weekend’s Georgia Bulldog matchup down to the most important numerical constituents. Let’s dive in.
#1….6. That’s the number of wins the Red and Black have in the past ten meetings in this series. That’s right, as much as it feels like this historically streaky rivalry has tilted strongly toward Athens, the Bulldogs are actually only 6-4 in the last ten matchups. This thing is absolutely still a rivalry.
#2….63.2. That’s Florida freshman quarterback DJ Lagway’s completion percentage on throws over 20 yards. It’s the highest number in the country, but it comes with some caveats. For one, the Gators aren’t exactly turning Lagway loose to wing it around. In the past two games he’s only thrown a total of 31 passes. And if you take out the Samford game in which he threw 3 touchdowns in place of the injured Graham Mertz, Lagway has thrown 2 touchdowns against 5 interceptions. Which leads us to another key number…..
#3…..17.2. As in Lagway has thrown 5 interceptions on only 86 passing attempts, one every 17.2 throws. It’s far and away the highest ratio among starting SEC quarterbacks (by comparison Carson Beck has thrown a pick every 31.25 attempts and some Bulldog fans think he’s a turnover machine). It’s a statistic that brings home that while Lagway has a ton of talent, he remains inexperienced, and is likely to turn the ball over if he’s forced to throw it a lot and if Glenn Schumann gets tricky with the coverages.
#4…..203. That is the total number of times Georgia has run the ball this season, last in the SEC by a relatively solid margin (LSU has run it 218 times, Florida 237). Again, as with most statistics there are some “buts” here. One is that Georgia has used the screen game and those backfield “push passes” a good bit, which serve as a surrogate for runs, especially on the edge.
But the fact remains that at no point this season have we really seen Georgia line up and run the ball down anyone’s throat. A Florida team that’s 12th in the SEC in rushing defense with a healthy 3.86 yards allowed per attempt is an appealing candidate to finally do that. I sort of suspect that we’re going to see Kirby Smart and Mike Bobo run the dang ball against a Gator squad that isn’t terribly deep in the front seven.
#5….1983. That was the last year Georgia had a win streak longer than three games in the series. That season saw the sixth win in a row for the Bulldogs, a 10-9 squeaker for the #4 Red and Black over a #9 ranked Gator group.
Since then the Bulldogs haven’t managed to string together more than three victories in a row. Florida by contrast has had two separate seven year winning streaks in the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party. For those of us who came of age as Georgia fans in the 90s and early aughts, this game will likely always have an outsized place in our pantheon of Bulldog rivalries. However many times we beat the Lizards, and however badly, it will never, ever be enough. Until later…
Go ‘Dawgs!!!