What Would Byerly Do?

[bravejason]

Actually, a good defense is all we need since we are a whisker away right now with a bad defense.

If the defense would just play uga at a level comparable to what they do overall against FBS teams, that would go a long way. Against uga, the defense allows an average of 38 points per game for 2008-2013. I looked at some of the data at cfbstats.com and I found that when GT plays FBS opponents, the defense allows an average of 26 points per game for 2008-2013.

Offensively, the team plays closer to their average performance against FBS teams. Against uga, the offense scores an average of 27 points per game for 2008-2013. When GT plays FBS opponents, the offense scores an average of 29 points per game for 2008-2013.

Looking at it from uga's point of view: against GT, uga's defense allows an average of 27 points per game and against FBS opponents they allow an average of 24 points per game. Offensively, uga scores an average of 38 points against GT against FBS opponents they score an average of 32 points per game for 2008-2013.

To summarize, against GT, uga allows an extra 3 points per game compared to their performance against FBS opponents while scoring an additional 6 points per game for net gain of 3 points per game. Against uga, GT scores 2 fewer points per game compared to their performance against FBS opponents while allowing 12 additional points per game for a net loss of 14 points per game.

When you look at it year by year for 2008-2013, the GT offense has a lot of variation. Sometimes the offense scores many more points than usual and sometimes it scores many fewer points than usual. The range is -22 to +21 ppg. Defensively, GT is much more consistent, though the team always performs worse. The range is +4 to +20 ppg.