Even though Bentley is projected as a first round NFL pick next year, the South Carolina pass efficiency is only 67th in the country. Their run game is worse, at 86th. Our defense is not good, being 71st against the run. But maybe that's enough against Junior. Our pass efficiency D is 89th, which is bad, but I almost thought it would be worse after facing Tua.
I think that our D played much better against Fromm and Stidham than they did against Grier. Bad against Tua, though if Nigel Warrior could catch Tua would have had his first int of the year. I think Bentley is good, but has struggled a bit this year. Junior doesn't seem to have much of a run game, so it's going to come down to our D being able to get pressure like we did on Fromm and Stidham.
On the other side of the ledger, Junior is 46th in pass efficiency D and only 89th in run D. They are in fact the weakest P5 run D we have faced this year. So maybe we can run on them better than other teams, and our revamped passing offense should be able to hold it's own. Our run offense is only 99th in the country, but their run D appears almost equally bad. Our pass efficiency offensive rating is 21, by far our best stat in the country.
On paper, we are a good match for them.
I am surprised that muschamp's D is not up to it's usual standards.
This comparison turned out much better than I thought it would.
But let me not forget the bottom line stats....Junior is 66th in scoring D and 64th in scoring offense, both very average, while Tennessee is 88th in scoring offense and 89th in scoring D. Looks like a pretty big advantage for them, but we have played a far tougher schedule. We did both play uga (and FWIW our game was closer) but then stack bammer, Florida, Auburn and West Virginia against Tamu, Kentucky, Mizzou and Vandy. Much tougher.
I will be disappointed if we don't at least keep it close.
