During Kirby Smart’s Monday press conference, I was curious when the head coach stated that the Georgia-Florida game “has been decided by the team, for many years, that ran the ball better.”

At the time, I wondered what exactly Smart meant by that assertion. Regardless, couldn’t the same likely be said regarding Georgia and any of its opponents? I mean, if a team is able to run the ball more effectively, it's likely controlling the line of scrimmage, which, in turn, means it’s probably controlling the game—and, therefore, will most likely win the game.

During Tuesday’s player interviews, linebacker Natrez Patrick somewhat satisfied my curiosity: “Actually, Coach Smart showed us a statistic during our Monday meeting,” Patrick said. “And, like, for the past 10 years, whichever team (Georgia vs. Florida) had the most rushing yards, that was the team that ended up winning the game.”

I figured if Smart was actually citing Georgia-Florida historical nuggets to his players, the “statistic” Patrick spoke of must have been a worthwhile one. Accordingly, I present Pat’s Weekly Stat (a stat you’ll likely not see anywhere else—and probably for good reason):

I first estimated that the lead rushing team (“LRT,” we’ll say, for short), whether that’s in Georgia’s games or those played by nearly any other college program, has a success rate of (wins its games) at probably around an 80-percent clip. Still, although that’s a seemingly high percentage, the probability of a team with an 80-percent success rate winning 12 consecutive games is roughly just 7 percent.

I next examined each Georgia-Florida meeting the last half-century from the 1969 through 2017 seasons, discovering that beginning in 2006 and up to the present, or for 12 straight Bulldogs-Gators games, the team which rushed for the most yards indeed won every affair.

Notably, during Georgia-Florida’s preceding 12-meeting stretch (1994-2005), the team that rushed for the most yards won only seven of the dozen games. In fact, in the 38 Georgia-Florida meetings prior to the LRT’s current 12-game winning streak, the LRT won 25 times, or just 66 percent of the time.

Seeking more of a modern-day comparison, so to speak—and one perhaps more appropriate/fitting—I figured the LRT results for Georgia against the seven opponents, including Florida, the Bulldogs have faced annually beginning in 2006.

If Georgia Tech is excluded from above (the Jackets are an anomaly because of their run-heavy offense), the LRT winning percentage in games since 2006 pitting Georgia against its six other annual opponents is .829—a seemingly high success rate, yet one in which succeeding a dozen straight times would be a notable feat.