Study Hall: South Carolina 45, Georgia 42

Five Thoughts

1. Georgia's offensive line doesn't really match is skill position players. While freshman Isaiah Crowell is certainly looking solid, Georgia running backs didn't really generate much on their own, relying on a line to push them forward almost four yards per play. Meanwhile, the line couldn't very well fend off a strong South Carolina pass rush even though Aaron Murray was finding nice gains when he was able to get the pass off.
   
   
2. In all, it is difficult to find too much to criticize regarding Georgia's offense. They could certainly run a little better, but in all, their biggest issue was that when they made a mistake, it was of the nuclear variety. They lost to a good team by three points because they allowed a defensive lineman to sprint 68 yards for a touchdown on a fake punt and they allowed interception and fumble returns to go for touchdowns as well. That's 21 points they allowed outside of the typical "offense drives the ball, defense tries to stop them" bounds.
   
   
3. I'm still torn as to whether Stephen Garcia is a good awful quarterback or a terrible good one. South Carolina's passing line was atrocious, as was their performance on passing downs, but seemingly pass they did complete, every passing down they did convert, was an enormous one.
   
   
4. An underrated aspect of this game: Georgia was only able to produce two field goals in the first quarter when their defense was overwhelming S.C.'s offense. Crowell ripped off two rushes for 43 yards on Georgia's second drive, but they stalled at the Gamecocks' 19. Then, after Bacarri Rambo intercepted Garcia, the Dawgs moved to the 21 and stalled again. S.C.'s first five drives went Punt-Punt-INT-Punt-Punt, but they only trailed 6-0 when that miserable stretch was over.
   
   
5. Marcus Lattimore ground out 176 yards in 27 carries, and I almost forgot to mention him. I think I'm taking him for granted.
   

Quick glossary after the jump.

A Quick Glossary

F/+ Rankings: The official rankings for the college portion of Football Outsiders. They combine my own S&P+ rankings (based on play-by-play data) with Brian Fremeau's drives-based FEI rankings.

Passing Downs: Second-and-7 or more, third-and-5 or more.

PPP: An explosiveness measure derived from determining the point value of every yard line (based on the expected number of points an offense could expect to score from that yard line) and, therefore, every play of a given game.

S&P+: Think of this as an OPS (the "On-Base Plus Slugging" baseball measure) for football. The 'S' stands for success rates, a common Football Outsiders efficiency measure that basically serves as on-base percentage. The 'P' stands for PPP+, an explosiveness measure that stands for EqPts Per Play. The "+" means it has been adjusted for the level of opponent, obviously a key to any good measure in college football. S&P+ is measured for all non-garbage time plays in a given college football game. Plays are counted within the following criteria: when the score is within 28 points in the first quarter, within 24 points in the second quarter, within 21 points in the third quarter, and within 16 points (i.e. two possession) in the fourth quarter. For more about this measure, visit the main S&P+ page at Football Outsiders.

Standard Downs: First downs, second-and-6 or less, third-and-4 or less.

Success Rate: A common Football Outsiders tool used to measure efficiency by determining whether every play of a given game was successful or not. The terms of success in college football: 50 percent of necessary yardage on first down, 70 percent on second down, and 100 percent on third and fourth down.