Welcome to your 2013 South Carolina Gamecocks, y'all.
But SI does love them some Clowney, and for admittedly good reasons. But, really?
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| Georgia |
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| South Carolina |
I wish I had a Clowney, but is he really worth a 9+ point bump? Even his coach wonders about his abilities:
SI: Is Jadeveon Clowney the best player you've coached?I can't help but shake the feeling SI and others are falling into the 'but it's Georgia so you know they'll fail in some way' fallacy. I'm not saying we won't. I am saying that 2007 has no direct bearing on 2013. I also can't help but to think they are over playing the value of last year's numbers, without looking at the reasons behind the numbers, something I hope to get into in a later post.
SS: The best player? He might be the best defensive end. I don't know if he could play offensive guard or not. He probably could.
TD
5 comments:
"...but it's Georgia, so you know they'll fail in some way."
If you try to apply that label to Georgia without stamping it in bold on South Carolina, you don't know college football.
Right?
They have Florida with a 93 on defense. They replace both safeties (Elam & Evans), their play-making linebackers (Jenkins, Bostic), and two most note-worthy linemen (Floyd and Hunter). Florida's defense will probably be pretty good, but nearly as good as Alabama's?
Georgia's defense was not very strong against good teams last year even though they had a lot of experienced talent that went to the NFL. USC has a strong, experienced DL (not just Clowney) and experienced DBs. The coordinator that is growing into his position led a defense that rated sixth last year according to Football Outsiders http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ncaadef. UGA gave up 350 yards rushing to Alabama. Head to head with the Gamecocks, UGA gave up 392 yards to USC, while USC gave up 224, much of that after having a huge lead. I don't think this is anti-UGA bias in any way. UGA might end up having a better D than USC this year--they certainly have a lot of good young but unproven talent--but based on all the facts, the ratings given in your example seem reasonable.
And yet they keep selling magazines. Who's buying them?!?
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