I never said they shouldn’t be ranked, or won’t be improved from their 4-win season last year. But this is a statement game for Kirby.

Wimbush is a good QB no doubt. He was a 4-star guy, but wasn’t in the National top 50. He was about the 9th or 10th rated QB. He has 5 career pass attempts - ALL in a home game mop-up vs UMass. Compare that to Eason. He was the NUMBER ONE QB by several services, #2 by the others. He was a consensus 5-star recruit, National player of the year by Gatorade, Maxwell, Bobby Dodd, USA-Today, PrepStar, yadda, yadda. He has a full year of SEC starting experience under his belt. This is a HUGE advantage Georgia. Seriously, anyone trying to debate that point - like Cyber said below - is desperately looking for an excuse for Georgia to lose the game before it even starts. That's a losers mentality in the face of an absolutely HUGE advantage for Georgia.

Josh Adams was a 3-star recruit who got pushed into action when NDs other guys got hurt. He’s had decent numbers, but he has been hampered by a hamstring - which can flare up at any time, and sometimes can limit you more than a repaired ACL - which he also suffered in HS btw. He’s a good back, but I’m not sure I’d take him over Herrion or Holyfield. Williams is average as grits, Holmes separated his shoulder in the spring and is questionable. None of their guys should present any problems for our defense.

As far as their NFL quality TE, are you talking about the guy with 13 career receptions? Whatever.

As far as their OL, they underperformed as a unit. McGlinchy is a good one as is Nelson, like I said. But also like I said, as a group they did not perform much better than our guys. Where someone is drafted is mostly speculation, but here are some facts: We allowed 24 sacks, ND allowed 28 (pass attempts were about equal 386 vs 388). Our RedZone pct (in part a measure of OL effectiveness) was 84.4%, ND was 83.3%. We also outperformed them in some other important OL stats: “Standard Down Line Yards per Carry” (63rd vs 102nd), “Opportunity Rate” (15th vs 46th), “Opponent-Adjusted Sack Rate” (58th vs 95th), and “Standard Downs Sack Rate” (74th vs 120th). To be fair, their group outperformed our guys in some other OL categories, but the point is this: OL is their biggest team strength (on offense at least), and regardless of how many draft picks they have, they were about on par with our group who was by far our biggest team weakness last year. This is not a point of debate, it is a statistical fact.

Top to bottom, Both WR corps’ are comparable. And don’t discount our secondary’s returning experience (3 Srs) - particularly compared to ND’s lack thereof - and Sanders’ shoulder will be 100%.

But looking at matchups, none of them favor Notre Dame. Their OL vs our DL, advantage us. Their RBs vs our LBs, big advantage us. Their WRs vs our DBs, probably a push (leaning towards slight advantage us). Our OL vs their DL, probably a push. Our RBs vs their LBs, big advantage us. Our WRs vs their DBs, probably a push.

This game sets up very much like Saban’s game against us in 2008. “Rebuilding power laying in wait, going on the road against an underachieving former power.” Remember we were a 6 pt favorite in that game. Like Cyber said below, if Kirby is indeed a winning coach, he’s gonna take advantage of our matchup advantages. I’ll tell you this, if someone like Spurrier, or Meyer, or Saban were taking our roster up to South Bend, we win by 3 TDs at least. It’s long about time our coach - whatever his name happens to be - starts getting similar results.