Numbers Watch

• Georgia facing Notre Dame is rare. This will be just the second meeting between the two schools. Georgia starting a true freshman quarterback is also rare as Jake Fromm will be the seventh Bulldog to do so. Both of these rarities have been mentioned often, but what about this one?

• According to Georgia’s media guide, this is just the fourth game that Georgia football has played on NBC. They are 1-1-1 on the network all-time and all three meetings were bowl games. In the 1969 Sugar Bowl, Georgia lost to Arkansas 16-2. The Bulldogs defeated the Tar Heels in the 1971 Gator Bowl 7-3 (battle between Vince Dooley and his brother Bill). The last NBC game for UGA was the 1984 Citrus Bowl where Georgia and FSU ended the game with a tie at 17 apiece, despite a valiant field goal attempt by Kevin Butler over 70 yards as time expired.

• This could have been a cool storyline if Jacob Eason led the Dawgs since Eason’s father was a former wide receiver for Notre Dame in the mid 1980’s, but instead we have a different storyline with Fromm making his first career collegiate start. Here is how the other Bulldogs true freshmen QBs have fared in their first start (not their first appearance, but first start).

• Fromm was very solid in his first game in relief of Eason. Here are Fromm's numbers per down against Appalachian State.

• In terms of running the ball, Nick Chubb started pretty slow, but at the end still had 96 yards on 15 attempts (6.4 yards/attempt). Here is a breakdown per quarter in the season opener.

• Chubb has 3,520 yards rushing in his career and is 1,739 behind Herschel Walker for the school record. He also added two more rushing touchdowns last week. It was his tenth career game with two TDs, but he has never had a game with three rushing touchdowns. He has 31 career touchdown rushes in his career and is alone in sixth place in that category. With a good night on Saturday he can climb even higher.

• As I mentioned last week, Sony Michel is climbing the charts as well. After an 87-yard performance against Appalachian State, the senior rap star has 2,498 for his career. Here are spots six through 10 on Georgia’s all-time career rushing yardage leaders.

• Notre Dame had three players last week who had over one hundred yards rushing. The fact that Georgia almost had two last week made me think about this stat. Did you know that Chubb and Michel have rushed for over a hundred yards in the same game just once in their career? It happened last season against South Carolina when Michel had 133 and Chubb had 121.

• On the receiving end of last Saturday’s win, it was Javon Wims coming through again. Last week, the senior had three receptions for 81 yards (second highest of career) and a touchdown. In his first 11 games in his career with the Bulldogs (he did not play 2016 season opener), he had 14 receptions and zero touchdowns. In his last two (the bowl game last season and App. State), he has six receptions including two for scores.

• Roquan Smith led the Dawgs in tackles in five games last season, including the last four contests. This season started similar to the way the last one ended as Smith tied for the team lead with six tackles.

• Smith was tied with Trenton Thompson. Thompson also added two tackles for a loss and a sack. In his last two games (counting last season’s bowl game) he has had 14 tackles, 5 ½ tackles for loss and four sacks. He had just two sacks in the first 12 games last season, before three in the bowl game against TCU and one on Saturday.

• J.R. Reed also had a sack last week to go along with his five tackles and a forced fumble. Reed is a transfer from University of Tulsa and had five tackles during the entire 2015 season, before sitting out last year due to transfer rules. Reed is also the son of former NFL standout Jake Reed. The elder Reed had 450 career receptions in the NFL for the Minnesota Vikings and New Orleans Saints. Jake was also part of one of the most famous trades in sports history. Many people forget that the Vikings received draft picks as well in the Herschel Walker trade and one of those picks was Jake Reed from Grambling State.

• Speaking of drafts, Nick Moore was the team’s long snapper last week due to an injury to regular starter Trent Frix. Moore is a walk-on and prior to joining the Dawgs a few seasons back, he was in the Boston Red Sox minor league system. He played four seasons in the minors and had 11 career home runs. His first manager was George Lombard. Georgia fans may remember Lombard was an All-American running back out of the Lovett School in the 1990’s who signed with Georgia but decided to play pro baseball after being drafted by the Atlanta Braves in the second round. Moore isn’t the only Bulldog with minor league baseball experience. Jake Skole, another walk-on, was a first round draft pick by the Texas Rangers in the 2010 MLB draft. He hit 35 home runs before coming to Athens. Some other Dawgs with pretty cool baseball experience are Terry Godwin who was drafted by the Braves in 33rd round in 2015 and Jake Fromm who played on the 2011 Little League World Series team from Warner Robins, Georgia.

• Another Notre Dame-Georgia connection in this game is that the Fighting’ Irish’s holder is Montgomery VanGorder. His father was the Bulldogs’ defensive coordinator from 2001 to 2004 and had a similar job for majority of the last two seasons (2015-2016) for Notre Dame.

• Another strange connection between the two schools is that a Georgia golfer, Matthew Beringer, is the great grandson of Don Miller (one of the famed “Four Horseman”) of Notre Dame lore. Between Beringer and Bo Sikes (grandson of the great Billy Payne), Georgia’s golf team has some pretty good connections.