Last week was embarrassing, not just for Tech, but also for me. In last week’s Stat Attack, I focused on how often TCU punts. And on Saturday night, the Bulldogs only forced the Horned Frogs into two punts, tied with the fewest in TCU punter Jordan Sandy's career.
But it’s a new week, and I’m much more confident about this one: Georgia Southern will run the ball a lot.
By contrast, Tech has only drawn up a run play on 52% of their offensive plays this season, a whole ten percentage points fewer than Georgia Southern’s season low against Coastal Carolina.
But not only do the Eagles run the ball often, it turns out that they’re also pretty dang good at it:
Of Tech’s previous 2020 opponents, only BYU has been more successful per rush.
That’s pretty scary on the surface, and it only gets scarier if we look at how Tech’s rushing defense measures up this year:
But there's a twist: Tech has played a lot of good rushing teams.
We saw above that Southern Miss is the second-worst rushing team Tech has faced this season. But compared to the rest of college football, they are ranked 70th, or right around middle of the pack of FBS.
So in other words, nearly every school Tech has faced this year has been an above average rushing team. And if we compare Tech’s run stopping to how the opponents played the rest of the year, we see an interesting trend:
I didn’t include TCU (because trust me you don’t want to know), but only twice this season has Tech allowed more yards per carry than their opponent averaged on the season.
But Georgia Southern isn’t a typical rushing team. The Eagles run the triple option. And like any other triple option team, their QB is responsible for a large number of rushes.
But it's not very often than an option QB leads the team in carries.
That's mostly due to the season-ending injury sustained to JD King in the first week of November. Logan Wright and Wesley Kennedy III teamed up to try to make up for the loss of King, but two weeks later, Kennedy was suspended from the team.
But the attrition doesn't stop at the running back position. QB Shai Werts, the Eagles' leading rusher, suffered a shoulder injury against Georgia State. The backup QB, Justin Tomlin, was hit with an ankle injury two weeks later in the regular season finale against Appalachian State.
The status of the two QBs for the New Orleans Bowl is still unknown, but if they are forced to sit out, the Eagles will be missing a lot of production on Wednesday:
That said, the weapons Georgia Southern still has are impressive. Logan Wright has averaged 6.5 yards per carry on his 88 attempts. Gerald Green is only slightly behind at 6.1 yards per carry.
Like with playing any option team, it all comes down to the Tech defense doing their job and defending the play that the Bulldogs know is coming. And with the extra few days to prepare for this unique style of offense, the Bulldogs will hopefully keep Georgia Southern in check.
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Nathan is also a contributor to gtpdd.dog, a lighthearted Louisiana Tech blog. Be sure to check out @gotechplsdntdie on Twitter.
