Missouri will beat Georgia (and here's why)

Less than 2/3 of Murray's passes were complete when he had all of his top receivers and both great running backs to make the play-action work.

Now, the guys playing receiver are notorious ball-droppers. McGowan in particular. And Conley is the one who SHOULD have dropped the ball in the SECCG, but instead caught it, and lost the game.

Furthermore, the Missouri defense isn't going to be forced to respect the inside run, so pass coverage should be even tighter than anything Murray has seen this year, with Mizzou's multiple 3-4 and 3-3-5 fronts (which you can read all about on page 1 of the mizzou board, topic title "Mizzou's Front Seven"... I'll edit to link in just a moment ETA for link). In that topic, you'll also find out that Mizzou's two DE's have split the SEC Def Lineman of the Week in every week but one. They may not get a sack on Murray, but they will keep him moving around, and throwing some balls away.

Georgia's defense hasn't been able to shut down anyone. There's no reason to believe they are going to have a break-out game and shut down Mizzou. The players are what they are... young and stupid. They say it never gets easy, but it gets less difficult. For these guys, it's going to be difficult for quite a while.

I do believe you'll get some TFL's for a lineman like Smith, I think you'll get a sack from Floyd and Ray Drew, Jenkins might share a sack, but as a unit, when it really matters on 3rd down (and 4th down), UGA's defense just isn't getting it done. For a full statistical breakdown on this, UGA's opponents this year converting 3rd and 4th downs vs UGA vs the rest of the field, to see how abysmal it is, go to the Dawg Rant, first page, topic by FooManChoo. eta for link I'll link that in a minute too.

So what is the conclusion?

Aaron Murray will play good football, but all of the pieces around him are 2nd and 3rd team (and 4th team!). He is starting this game with the same lineup you'd expect to see when UGA is up 42-3 on Furman in the 4th quarter... the kind of lineup we call "garbage time" because you just expect to start sucking statistically at that point. It's the kind of line-up that many statisticians simply throw out the numbers from because it isn't representative of the team's capability. Except in this instance.. it will be.

Mizzou wins, and wins ugly. Mizzou gets the confidence to believe they can contend for the East. They get the confidence to play harder and smarter for the rest of the season, and by damn, they just might do it.