Kirby Smart reveals key metric that Georgia has started to emphasize
Stats tend to tell a story. Sometimes it’s good. Sometimes it’s bad. And sometimes one stat means more than another. That’s the case within the Georgia Football program with explosive play differential. While many believe that turnovers are the deciding factor on both sides of the ball, Kirby Smart and company have found that the number of explosive plays your offense produces and your defense prevents is more indicative of the success your team will have than turnover margin.
“Turnovers are hard to control. I would love to say that we control them. For whatever reason, in the seven years that I’ve been here, we’ve never really been great. I think one year we had a really good turnover margin, maybe the first or second year. But outside of that, we never really have turned the ball over a lot offensively, so the margin becomes the defense’s problem when you don’t turn it over a lot. We’ve dug into a different stat which is explosive plays and explosive play differential. We think that a greater indicator in wins and losses is the explosive play differential,” Smart explained. “When you add our runs and passes and you combine that against what the defense has given up, we haven’t had a game that we weren’t less than four positive. That indicator, actually, in the SEC, is a greater indicator in what’s won games. I don’t know why that is, but Ole Miss, ourselves, Tennessee, Alabama are the four greatest differential teams in terms of explosive plays over their opponent.”
“We dig hard at that, but it does not lessen the value of a turnover, because turnovers are critical and the greatest equalizer there is in sport,” he continued. “Really, when you think about how did Georgia Tech beat Pitt on the road, turnover margin was a critical factor in that game. So, it’s something that we’ve got to continue to improve. We keep selling to our players that if we’re a lot more explosive than the opponent and we don’t give up explosive plays, and it we got positive four over what they get, so if we get 10 of them and they get six of them, then we’re going to have a greater chance of winning the game.”
The conversation arose because of the success that Georgia’s opponent on Saturday has had creating turnovers. Georgia Tech is top 10 in the country in turnovers forced at +11 on the season for turnover margin. For reference, Georgia is -2 on the year. However, in comparing the team’s explosive play differential -using the more readily available 20+ yard plays statistic as the definition for explosive – Georgia is +41 while Tech is -14. In fact, Georgia ranks second-best in the country behind only Florida State who has a +52 explosive play differential.
Kickoff time for Saturday’s game is set for 12:00 p.m. ET on ESPN. The Bulldogs are 35.5-point favorites according to the folks at Vegas Insider.
Georgia will honor its senior class before the game with it being their final career game at Sanford Stadium. In 115 all-time meetings between these two teams, the Bulldogs hold a 69-41-5 advantage including four straight since a loss in Kirby Smart’s first season on the job. Georgia won 45-0 last year in Atlanta. This will be Georgia Tech’s first trip to Athens since 2018 with the 2020 game being cancelled due to COVID-19.
