Georgia and Texas are two teams ranked in the top five, and they play each other on Saturday. This will be a high-profile showdown for which the top-rated sportsbooks have provided early NCAAF lines.
Georgia was initially favored, but now Texas is the favorite. My interest is in the total for this game. For your best bets, I will recommend investing in the “over.”
NCAAF Pick
- Over 56.5 (-110) at Bet365 (check our Bet365 Review)
Georgia Bulldogs vs. Texas Longhorns
Saturday, October 19, 2024 – 07:30 PM ET at DKR-Texas Memorial StadiumÂ
Over 30 Points
In order to bet on the total for a given game, you’ll want to have a pretty good sense of how many points each team will score. The Longhorns have been consistent with respect to how many points they put up. They’ve scored over 30 points in all of their games so far.
My main contention is this: “under” bettors will try to say that Georgia’s defense is good enough to limit Texas’ offense, but I will contend that it is not. Rather than holding Texas to fewer points, Georgia will push the Longhorns to score more points than they usually do because Georgia has a good offense.
How Texas Has Scored This Many Points
Texas has scored over 30 points in each of its games despite facing excellent defenses even on the road. For example, on September 7, the Longhorns dropped 31 points on a very good Michigan defense, one that ranks 32nd.
This scoring total is impressive not only because Michigan’s defense is good — for comparison’s sake, the Wolverines’ defense ranks seven spots higher than Georgia’s —but also because the Wolverines’ offense is awful. Michigan does not have a competent quarterback, making it very hard for it to score many points.
Normally, teams will score more points when they are pushed to do so. If a team has a big lead, then it will not score as many points as it is capable of doing, because it will not want to take risks. Instead, it will want to focus on protecting the lead that it has. My point here is that Texas could have scored well more than 31 points against Michigan if Michigan had had an offense that was capable of scoring more points, which would have put more pressure on Texas’ offense to score more points.
I will now indicate what makes the Longhorns so dangerous offensively — and especially dangerous to a defense like Georgia’s — before explaining how the Bulldogs possess the sort of offense that, unlike Michigan’s offense, will push the Longhorns to score more points.
A Dangerous Balance
Michigan’s offense is easy to stop because it is one-dimensional: it has a good rush attack but lacks a competent quarterback, which means that defenses can stack the box and otherwise focus on taking away the one thing that it can do, which is run the ball.
In order to be dangerous, an offense will want to be two-dimensional. This way, a defense cannot invest the greater part of its resources to stopping either the rush attack or the pass attack of the opposing offense.
Texas’ Pass Attack
Texas has two future NFL quarterbacks: Arch Manning and Quinn Ewers. Both quarterbacks are highly efficient passers with impressive touchdown-to-interception ratios. While both quarterbacks have their own individual merits, life is fairly easy for them because of the stacked wide receiver crew that they have to throw to.
To see how deep the Longhorns’ pass-catching group is, just consider that Silas Bolden is a very talented receiver, a former four-star recruit who was a two-time All-Pac-12 selection. Despite being that good, Bolden ranks behind seven other teammates in receiving yards this season.
Texas’ leading receiver is Alabama transfer Isaiah Bond, a big-time playmaker who sustained a minor ankle injury in his last game, but there is reported optimism that he will be fit to play in this game. Bond is a playmaker in that he is not only great at catching balls, but also, in part due to his exceptional speed, at running with the ball.
Texas’ Rush Attack
The Longhorns’ offense is balanced because it also excels at running the ball.
While he has plenty of support in the form of other efficient ball carriers, Quintrevion Wisner is the top guy. In his last two games, he amassed 88 rushing yards on 13 carries against Mississippi State before running for 118 yards on 13 carries against a stiff, well-ranked Oklahoma run defense.
Georgia’s Run Defense
Stopping the run has already been a consistent problem for Georgia’s defense. The Bulldogs recently allowed Kentucky to amass 170 rushing yards, Alabama to accrue 173 rushing yards, and Auburn to collect 137 rushing yards.
Ball carriers, with Auburn’s Jarquez Hunter serving as one example, are performing better against Georgia’s defense than they are against other defenses. Despite facing low-profile teams like New Mexico and Alabama A&M, Hunter’s YPC average against the Bulldogs was even higher than his season average.
Georgia’s Pass Defense
It is true that the Bulldogs performed better against the run in their last game. However, in that same game, they allowed over 300 yards to Mississippi State’s quarterback, who is a freshman who had not exceeded 144 passing yards in either of his previous two games. This is why we need to reiterate the point about Texas’ balance.
First of all, Texas’ rush attack is way too potent for Georgia’s defense to limit it even if it were to focus on limiting it. But also, even if the Bulldogs were to focus on trying to take away Texas’ rush attack, its pass defense would grow even more vulnerable than usual and Texas’ pass attack would take advantage.
The Bulldogs are vulnerable in their secondary because they lack a reliable stud like departed cornerback Tyson Campbell, who is now in the NFL. Instead, they are leaning on guys who give up big plays, like Julian Humphrey when he gave up the game-winning touchdown to Alabama, and to Daylen Everette whom offenses repeatedly pick on because he allows completions at a high rate.
Georgia’s defense continues to suffer the problem that it had last year, of struggling to get sacks, but it also lacks quality in its secondary.
Georgia’s Offense Will Help Out
I talked at length about Texas’ offense because I believe that the Longhorns will do most of the scoring. Pushed by Georgia’s offense, they will exceed 40 points, whereas they scored 31 against a Michigan team that has a better defense than Georgia’s but does not share Georgia’s offensive quality.
The Bulldogs exceeded 30 points in their last game against Mississippi State, in their penultimate game against Auburn, and in their third-to-last game against Alabama primarily because they have a future NFL player in Carson Beck. He is a very accurate and efficient passer who can make passes all over the field. Unlike Michigan’s quarterback group, he has a bright future in the NFL and has multiple good wide receivers to help him out, including the reliable and consistent Dominic Lovett and the speedy big-play threat Arian Smith.
While it has talented running backs, such as Trevor Etienne, the brother of current Jacksonville Jaguar Travis Etienne, to keep Georgia’s defense from focusing on its pass attack, it is primarily its pass attack that will lead it to score a lot of points.
I contend that the Longhorns will win by scoring over 40 points, but the Bulldogs will also easily score more than enough points to help the “over” hit. Texas’ defense has not faced an offense like Georgia’s, which will blow way past the 12-point output that one-dimensional Michigan managed.
NCAAF Pick: Over 56.5 (-110) at Bet365
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