Georgia came into the 2024 season with high, national championship type expectations.
After two consecutive national championships, Kirby Smart’s team stumbled in the 2023 SEC championship game against Alabama and did not make the four team playoff. However, with returning QB Carson Beck and a high number of returning starters on defense, Georgia looked primed for another national title run. They started the season first in all of my college football rankings.
In their opener, Georgia used a dominant second half to beat Clemson 34-3. This win looks better each week as Clemson has beaten their next three opponents by 34.3 points on average.
Then, Georgia almost lost at Kentucky, as they left Lexington with a 13-12 win. This was a Kentucky team that had just gotten thumped at home by SEC bottom dweller South Carolina.
This past weekend, Georgia looked lost in the first half against Alabama as they faced a 30-7 halftime deficit. Then, Carson Beck led an epic comeback as Georgia took a late 4th quarter lead. Ultimately, Alabama scored last in 41-34 thriller of a college football game.
For all those people that believe a 12 team playoff negates the importance of the regular season, Georgia at Alabama was the most watched regular season college football game since 2017.
After four games, Georgia has dropped from 1st to 2nd in my member college football rankings behind Alabama. The numbers still like this football team.
However, the schedule might be their biggest obstacle to the 2024 college football playoff. Let’s look at three key games, although with Georgia’s win probability and spread according to my best college football numbers.
- at Texas, 43.1% win probability, +2.3.
- at Mississippi, 52.7% win probability, -0.9.
- Tennessee, 70.6% win probability, -7.3.
In addition, Tennessee has played well this season, and I suspect they will be less than a touchdown underdog by the time they visit Georgia on November 16th.
To calculate the chance that Georgia makes the college football playoff, I use the Unabated simulator with my member college football numbers. On a recent episode of The Football Analytics Show, professional bettor Rufus Peabody talked about how he developed the simulation and models the selection committee based on historical data and logistic regression. It was one of many amazing process based insights that he offered on the podcast.
In the simulation, Georgia has a 61.3% chance to make the playoff. Maybe the code is missing some committee SEC bias, but these results suggest value in +220 for Georgia to not make the playoff at DraftKings (38.7% chance to not make the playoff compared to a 31.3% break even probability).
Check out how to get the college football simulator over at Unabated.
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This article was sent to The Power Rank’s email newsletter at noon Eastern on Friday, October 4, 2024. This newsletter is a free service that strives to be:
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