Thankfully, the absurd redundancies of playoff talk shall soon be over, replaced by only a couple days of second-guessing the playoff picks.

          First, the SEC Championship, a game severely overdissected every day for a week, with the obvious things. But homerism is always blinding, boosted by paying too much attention to recruiting rankings – a bigger web sucker bet than porn – without using any common sense or logic.

          So yes, people and happy Dog media overestimated Georgia in the first place. Doesn’t mean the Bulldogs aren’t good, but no, they’re not quite as revolutionary as many media folks led everybody to believe.

          The offensive line hadn’t been together enough as a unit the last year or two to earn all that hyperbole, and it showed. The offense is what it is, only because that’s what the head coach wants, and in part because of inexperienced receivers.

          Now, to the LSU game.

          1. No, this is not an elite Georgia defense. Not legendary. Not Erk-like.

          It’s good defense, and may have an elite game, but the hyperventilating as been absurd.

          How good is it?

          We don’t know, because it hasn’t played a good offense. All year, nope. Not been really challenged by much.

          For one, there was the stretch of playing backup quarterbacks. Somewhere in there was a receiver starting at quarterback. And there was the offense of a now-fired head coach.

          A month ago and today, I collected where each opponent’s offense ranked in the NCAA stats in five categories: third-down conversions, first downs made, rush offense, team passing efficiency, and total offense. Covers all bases.

          I listed where each team ranked in those five, out of 130 FBS programs ranked by the NCAA.

          The best offense Georgia has faced was Auburn. 44th. Next is Notre Dame at 46th, 1o spots better than Florida. After that, everybody was in the second half of FBS.

          LSU’s offense is dynamic.

          Georgia hasn’t played even a decent dynamic offense. The top passing efficiency ranking was Arkansas State at 14th, with Florida 15th, and Notre Dame 22nd. The average ranking in that state: 78.

          Florida was 122 in the run, Kentucky fifth.

          All over the numbers is evidence that Georgia just hasn’t been tested by a quality, balanced offense, an explosive offense, an offense of playmakers.

          The average ranking for the five stats: 82 for third down, 71 for first downs, 74 for rush offense, 78 for pass efficiency offense, and 81 for total offense.

          Must perform elite against elite to actually be elite. And with Georgia’s clenched offense, the pressure is on that defense to do things it hasn’t had to do all year.

          Can they do it? Probably. There’s talent there, but Georgia will see plenty of what it hasn’t seen all year.

          2. Do we all get surprised with Georgia’s offense?

          Running a few new plays isn’t huge, especially if not run in a game before. Perfect execution on Wednesday is mighty different than on Saturday.

          David Greene was in Macon a few weeks ago and finally said what I’ve been barking for a year: we could very well watch Jake Fromm’s Georgia career end with Georgia only getting about 60 percent of what he can do.

          As when he was in high school, it’d be a good thing for Georgia if the headsets broke and Fromm had to call a few series. People would be surprised how smooth they’d look starting with that second series.

          Fromm might be a hair off, but it’s because this is the the lowest ranked receiving group as far as experience and consistency since probably his freshman year in high school. And now one is done, and another is out for the first half.

          Georgia can’t try to make up for lost time when George Pickens comes back. The other guys better man up, run the full route, run it properly, and expect a strike.

          The Bulldogs are where they are, thanks in part to yet another down-down-down SEC East. And they can certainly beat LSU.

          Hell, it’s football. It’s Saturday. It’s the SEC. Said that a few months ago when South Carolina reminded all of us as much.

          Still the prediction: LSU 37, Georgia 24.