Georgia-Michigan Betting Preview
Tags: Sportsbetting, Collegefootball

Georgia looks to bounce back after getting embarrassed by Alabama and faces a Michigan team in the midst of a dream season.

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Orange Bowl — College Football Playoff Semifinal

3 Georgia vs 2 Michigan

Friday, 7:30pm, ESPN

Georgia -7.5/Total 45.5

The second Semifinal features a team who quieted a lot of their doubters against a team who saw their old doubters re-emerge after a poor performance in the conference championship game. Michigan followed up its dominance against Ohio State with a dominant win over Iowa to earn their first trip to the College Football Playoff. Georgia was widely viewed as the best team in college football, but they got a reality check in a 41–24 throttling at the hands of Alabama.

Alabama showed that scoring on the Georgia defense is actually pretty easy. All you need is great offensive line play, a wide receiver who can stretch the defense down the field and a transcendent talent at quarterback. Easy enough, right? The good news for Michigan is that they have the DUDES up front. The Michigan offensive line won the Joe Moore Award which goes to the top o-line in the nation. Michigan is second in the country in sack rate allowed. Michigan allowed the third fewest sacks in the country behind Air Force and Army who don’t throw the ball. The question for Michigan is do they have the quarterback and receivers to challenge the Georgia secondary? Michigan wants to win games with good defense and a run game that almost had two 1,000 yard rushers. Cade McNamara has been solid, but they’d prefer for the game not to be on his shoulder. He had 20 or more pass attempts just four times this season. They don’t have one real go-to receiver. The leader in receptions, Cornelius Johnson, had just 38 catches, but they have multiple big play threats. They have five different players with a reception over 50 yards this season.

The closest comparison to the Georgia defense that Michigan faced was Wisconsin and there were some positives and some negatives. Michigan couldn’t establish the run against the Badgers at all. They ran for just 2.5 yards per carry. Hassan Haskins and Blake Corum combined for 34 carries and 93 yards. Michigan was able to hit some big plays in the passing game to open some things up. Michigan averaged 14 yards per completion so when they were able to complete passes, they got yards. Michigan was also helped immensely by a Wisconsin offense that struggled with ball security. If Georgia doesn’t turn the ball over and Michigan has to sustain drives can they?

The other side of the ball is just as interesting because NARRATIVE is firmly attached to the Georgia offense. There has been plenty of doubt surrounding Stetson Bennett all year despite his positive numbers and it caught up to Georgia against Alabama when it was clear that Bennett couldn’t go toe-to-toe with Bryce Young. Fortunately for Georgia, Michigan isn’t as explosive as Alabama so can Bennett make enough plays to beat the Wolverines? It will start with pass protection. Georgia also has been good in that area. They’re 16th in the country in sack rate allowed and only gave up one more sack this season than Michigan did. They did give up three sacks to Alabama so it makes you wonder how they’ll hold up against the dynamic pass rushing tandem of Aidan Hutchinson and David Ojabo. Michigan will have its hands full with a tremendously talented freshman tight end Brock Bowers who led Georgia in catches, yards and touchdowns. Georgia is hoping to maybe get a boost from George Pickens who returned late in the year from a torn ACL, but just returned from COVID. Georgia can run the ball with Zeus White and James Cook, but Georgia’s run game is less dynamic than it’s been in a while.

That’s why so much is on the shoulders of Bennett. A lot of people have wondered why Kirby Smart won’t give JT Daniels a shot, but Bennett is his guy and Daniels missed some of the bowl prep with COVID so it seems as if he’s only going to play as a “break glass in case of emergency” situation. Bennett hasn’t been bad, it’s just a question of how high is his ceiling? This doesn’t feel like the kind of game where that is going to matter. This should be a defensive slugfest where neither team will be able to sustain drives consistently. The line has remained steady at 7.5 and if I’m getting more than a touchdown I think I’d lean Michigan. The total has ticked up a couple of points from where it opened and it’s at a good number, but I think it also comes in slightly under.