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Post Even the freaking bowl game is at noon

Sunday December 4, 2016

Georgia will face TCU in the Liberty Bowl in Memphis at noon on Friday, December 30. ESPN will televise the game. This matchup had been the consensus among most bowl projections since last weekend, and none of Saturday’s results did anything to change the placement of SEC teams.

Georgia is undefeated in three previous meetings with TCU. The most recent game occurred in Athens in 1998, and Georgia came away with a 38-10 victory.

TCU finished the regular season 6-6 overall and 4-5 in Big 12 conference play. Their wins include impressive blowouts against Baylor (66-22) and Texas (31-9), but they have no wins over ranked opponents. They have a couple of near-misses earlier in the season: Arkansas outlasted them 41-38 in 2OT, and Oklahoma outgunned them 52-46 on Oct. 1. They started the season ranked #13 and were still ranked #21 for that Oklahoma game, but they finished the season 3-4.

The Horned Frogs finished the 2015 season ranked #7 after an improbable comeback win over Oregon in the bowl game. They lost a large group of contributors from that team including QB Trevone Boykin and All-American WR Josh Doctson. Texas A&M transfer Kenny Hill leads the TCU offense, but he was injured against Texas. He came off the bench in the season finale against Kansas State but couldn’t kickstart a lackluster offense. You’d expect Hill to be a little healthier in time for the bowl. Hill and his replacement Foster Sawyer have gone back and forth since preseason, and TCU hasn’t been afraid to pull Hill when he’s struggled.

TCU’s offense has put up some big scores this season, but consistency has been an issue. It sounds as if they’ve had some familiar problems at receiver and along the offensive line. A good barometer for Georgia’s success in the bowl game will be the Dawgs’ ability to run: TCU defended the run well in big wins over Baylor and Texas but gave up at least 330 yards on the ground in losses to Oklahoma State and Kansas State.

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