Another week, another blowout.
Yawn.
No wonder Alabama fans spend so much time trolling Twitter. They're bored.
After last week's 41-17 thrashing of South Carolina in Columbia, Georgia returns home to another overmatched non-conference opponent, Middle Tennessee State.
The Blue Raiders are 1-1 on the year, opening the season with a 35-7 loss to crosstown rival Vanderbilt and following that up with a 61-37 track meet win against UT Martin.
Losing by four touchdowns to Vandy should tell you all you need to know, but you come to this blog for all the things you don't need to know. Let's get started.
The last time...
1) These teams met:
Georgia and Middle Tennessee State have met exactly once in their respective histories, all the way back in 2003.
The parallels are hard to ignore, too.
Those Bulldogs just blew out a team from South Carolina on the road in a game most folks figured would be close, too.
Following its 30-0 win over Clemson in Death Valley, Georgia pulled away in a bit of a clunker over the Blue Raiders the next week, 29-10.
I remember that game. It was very hot, and the crowd was none too pleased that Mark Richt's team was sleep walking through the game.
Oh, if only we knew how often that would happen.
2) A Georgia player scored his first six touchdowns away from home:
Here's a bit of a weird stat for you. Junior running back Brian Herrien has scored five career touchdowns — all outside the friendly confines of Sanford Stadium.
His first carry in the Georgia Dome (God rest its soul) against North Carolina in 2016 turned into a score, and he tacked on two more in garbage time in the blowout loss to Ole Miss a few weeks later in Oxford.
In 2017, Herrien found the endzone only once — late in the game against Tennessee in Knoxville. And so far in 2018, Herrien's only touchdown came in Columbia, South Carolina.
If he scores on Saturday, he would avoid being the first Bulldogs since Aron White to score his first six touchdowns away from home.
White actually scored his first seven away from Athens, and then promptly crashed into the hedges when he got one in Sanford Stadium, against New Mexico in 2011, presumably because he'd only scored in non-hedged environments up until that point.
Turns out that hedge-breaking score would, in fact, be the only time White found the endzone Between Inside the Hedges.
3) Middle Tennessee State beat an SEC team:
We don't actually need to dive that far back to find this one.
In 2016, the Blue Raiders morphed into a juggernaut, going on the road to beat Missouri 51-45. (A team Georgia managed to beat by a single, skinny point, I might add.)
Middle Tennessee put up 595 yards of offense, including 311 rushing yards, but didn't have much luck defensively. Drew Locke and the Tiger offense still managed to put up 629 yards themselves in a losing effort.
4) Georgia beat four teams from Tennessee in the same season:
I know, the Vols and Commode-doors are still on the schedule, but do we really think the Bulldogs lose to either those two, let alone Middle Tennessee?
Let's feel like we can safely assume four wins there, which, paired with the win over Austin Peay (based in Clarksville, Tenn.), would make it four wins over the Volunteer State.
That hasn't happened since ... ever, as best as I can tell.
The most Tennessee-based opponents Georgia has played in a season is three, most recently in 2009 (Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Tennessee Tech) and the most recent time it has beaten three Tennessee-based teams in a single season was 2003 (Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Middle Tennessee).
5) Middle Tennessee gave up 50 points:
If Vandy can score 35, surely Jake Fromm and company could sniff 50, right?
Look, I get it, it could be like Austin Peay, where a 38-0 halftime lead turns into a clock-chewing snore fest that puts very few extra points on the board, but I can dream, right?
If Georgia hangs half a hundred on the Blue Raiders on Saturday, it would be the first time the Raider D has given that many points since Nov. 26, 2016, the same day the University of Tennessee started what has become a nine-game conference losing streak. (Yay! Misery in orange!)
That day, Middle Tennessee toppled Florida Atlantic in a game I can only assume was played on a Play Station with a copy of EA NCAA Football.
Final score: 77-56.
The two teams combined for 1,346 yards of offense, 63 first downs, and, in the fourth quarter, five touchdowns in less than five minutes.
6) Georgia trailed at home:
The last team to lead the Bulldogs Between the Hedges was ... Kentucky.
The Wildcats led last year's match-up 3-0 for 6 minutes, 11 seconds, before Georgia regained a lead it would never relenquish, en route to a 42-13 victory.
In fact, since the start of the 2017 season, those 6 minutes and 11 seconds are the only ones where the Dawgs have trailed at home.
Georgia trailed for a combined NOTHING against Appalachian State, Samford, Mississippi State, Missouri, South Carolina and Austin Peay.
7) Middle Tennessee played a Top 5 team:
Georgia checks in at No. 3 in the latest polls, though the poll that matters, the College Football Playoff Poll, won't be released until later in the season.
But we need something to chat about in the mean time, don't we?
Saturday is the first time since a 2015 date with No. 2 Alabama that the Blue Raiders have ventured in such territory.
In a score nearly identical to the one the Crimson Tide would levy against the Bulldogs a few weeks later, Bama whipped Middle Tennessee 37-10 in Tuscaloosa.
Unlike Georgia, however, the Blue Raiders held eventual Heisman Trophy winner Derrick Henry under 100 yards, limiting him to 96 yards on 16 carries. (He had 148 in Athens.)
8) Georgia returned an interception for a touchdown:
"DeAndre Baker against South Carolina last week!" ... would be the answer, if Baker didn't drop the ball short of the goal line on his interception of Jake Bentley. (Linebacker Juwan Taylor picked the ball up after it rolled into the endzone, giving Taylor the touchdown, officially.)
The last Bulldog to return an interception for a score was Mo Smith, whose pick-six set the tone for a dominant second half for the Georgia defense in a 13-7 victory over Auburn in 2016.
Since then, the Bulldogs have pulled down 18 interceptions, without a touchdown return.
9) Middle Tennessee was shutout:
I would file this one, like most "shutout" questions, into the "we'll see, but I wouldn't bet on it" category. Even if Georgia's defense is dominant (which it should be) teams might still find a few points after a turnover, or in garbage time against the third-stringers.
Still, a shutout would be fairly impressive when you consider the Blue Raiders haven't been goose egg'd since 2012.
In the 2012 regular season finale, Middle Tennesse got housed by Arkansas State 45-0. Weirdly enough, the Blue Raiders still finished 8-4, but were not invited to a bowl game.
Perhaps losing 45-0 to a Sun Belt team disqualifies you automatically.
10) Georgia returned a kickoff for a touchdown:
This one is a bit serendipitous, should it happen on Saturday, since the answer also happened in a game that was affected by a hurricane. (Saturday's game kicks off at noon, if you weren't aware. If not, surprise! Hope you're reading this on Friday!)
In 2016, Hurricane Matthew pushed the Georgia-South Carolina back to Sunday afternoon in Columbia.
I remember trying to sneak in peeks at my phone while I was volunteering at my church's 4:30 service. I happened to be streaming the game when this stat happened.
After the Gamecocks scored to get within a touchdown, 21-14, late in the fourth quarter, Terry Godwin cleanly pulled the ensuing onside kick out of the air, and raced down the sideline for a touchdown. I remember Brent Musberger being confused initially on the SEC Network broadcast, saying that Godwin should have been ruled down where he fielded the kick.
Thankfully, we were "looking live" at a game-icing touchdown instead, as the Dawgs hung on, 28-14.
***
The last line I saw had Georgia as a 33.5-point favorite.
As someone noted on Twitter after last week's drubbing of South Carolina, "This sure as [expletive] ain't a Richt team anymore!"
While I love Coach Richt dearly, I say that only to say that if he still coached this team — along with his penchant of not running up the score — I would take Middle Tennessee to cover.
Something like: 38-17. Comfortable, but nothing that wows you.
But, now that it's Kirby's team, I don't see this one staying nearly that close.
I like Georgia to win and cover, 48-7.
