re: Predict the score of each game next year

1. I don't see us winning the Bama game and the Tennessee game. If we beat Bama, we'll have a letdown in Knoxville and if we lose to Bama, we come out fired up and kick the Vols arses.

2. We will never ever beat Florida by 3 td's anytime soon. Ever. If there was a time to do that, it was last year...


3. And I think we will split the Auburn and Ga Tech games unfortunately.

This is all assuming we have solid QB play similar to last year, which is not something we know now at all. The defense is gonna be heavily relied on this year.

We lose to Bama, Tennessee, and Auburn.

Brice Ramsey's bad decisions plus not much experience at receiver worries me

For one, Florida. In case you haven't noticed, we tend to struggle w/ them.

Scratch.

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Bobo is somebody'e else's problem, the last relic of underachievement has left the building.

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I don't even know where to start dismantling this post

I don't know why football fans think specific wins and losses are predictable. If you take a team with known weaknesses, it's not surprising that they'll lose some games, even games they "should" have won. In 2014 we had known weaknesses in the passing game, the defensive secondary and to a lesser extent on the defensive line. We lost our best running back (and a couple of our best backups) for over half the season and that hurt even though Chubb did a great job. In light of all that, 10-3 was a good outcome.

For 2015, I think we have fewer weaknesses. Some folks have convinced themselves that our quarterback play next year will see a dropoff. It's possible, but when I actually rewatch our games I don't see why it's a given. Mason didn't drive the offense, he just played a low risk game. Our offensive success was because of the OL and the running game. The downside is that we were predictable and fairly one dimensional and there were times that our offense bogged down when we needed them to cover for a weak defense.

Adding another element in 2015, either better downfield passing or a more mobile qb, could definitely overcome Mason's main attribute, which was lack of turnovers. Throw in a better defense and it could be a great season. Maybe it doesn't turn out that way, depending on injuries, etc., but there's no reason to dismiss our chances of winning the SEC at this point.

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it's usually pretty accurate that when you go from a 5th year senior with a few games starting experience to a young guy with very limited action (mostly in mopup duty), there will be a dropoff.

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If you were talking about going from 4 year starter Aaron Murray to Ramsey or Bauta, I'd agree. But Mason came into 2014 as basically a rookie, and it definitely showed at times. He was not an offensive force that can't be replaced. In fact, Bauta is entering his 4th year in our system, and I never saw Mason do a single thing that I don't think he could do, plus I think he might handle pressure in the pocket better and pick up some yards scrambling. Ramsey might loosen up defenses with the deep ball, giving us a less predictable offense. We are replacing a first year starter, with a weak arm, with another first year starter with a better arm or better legs. My decades of observation doesn't convince me that it's a dropoff.

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And that's all we needed from him.

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Well, I disagree. We needed more in the South Carolina game, the Florida game, and the Tech game, as well as the Tennessee game where he played horrible and we almost lost. It's not enough to say our offense was good, because it could have been better if Mason had other tools. If Ramsey or Bauta put us in some shakier positions, they may also get some first downs in situations where Mason wouldn't have. Risk and reward are two sides of the same coin and you can't consider one without the other.

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We needed more in the South Carolina game, the Florida game, and the Tech game

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I think you filed this under the wrong "needs" file. We made Connor Show look like Tom Brady, Matt Jones is still running in Jacksonville and our two outstanding freshman backs are still lamenting their fumbles with Tech. You've lost your mind if you think Mason cost us anything.

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But to suggest our new QB will have less than 5 INT on the year is absurd. Even though Mason didn't have a ton of experience (although he had 2.5 games worth of starts), he was still a 5th year senior who knew how to protect the ball.

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I could play quarterback for Georgia and never throw an intereception, not one. That would of course, have an opportunity cost because some of those plays where I handed off to Nick Chubb would have a better outcome if I was also able to pass the football. There is a tradeoff between risk and reward. Just because Mason "protected the ball" doesn't mean he had an optimal skillset. He did what he was capable of doing, but that's not the same as saying he optimized our offensive output.

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And has never played anything more than the last few snaps of a blowout.

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By the time we play our first SEC game in 2015, one of our qb's will have as much starting experience as Mason had when we played Clemson. Any incremental advantage in skill will quickly overcome Mason's slight advantage in experience.

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Mason's 5th year senior year is better better, numbers wise, than either stafford or david greene. It's not about overall talent, it's about beign old enough and around the game enough to not put your team in bad positions.

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Like I said, Mason's success was in taking very few risks. But there were opportunity costs associated with that strategy. If he had played qb with the offenses that Stafford and Green did, that comparison would have been much different, because he couldn't do what they did and our offense would have suffered.

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We didn't lose a single game this season because of mason. Not a one.

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You have no way of knowing that. Our offense was limited because of his cautious decisions and limited physical tools. There's a reason no NFL team drafted Mason. They know his abilities are unlikely to maximize their success in a pro-style offense. I see no reason to think he maximized our offense either. With better qb play, it's not unreasonable to think we could have won more games in 2014. Low interception numbers are not the sole determinant of quarterback talent.