Georgia Football 2018 Preview: Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders

Strengths of the program:

The older Stockstill has built an exciting offensive program since arriving. With his son as QB, the Blue Raiders have been an explosive offense the past couple of years even when James was injured. The QB will have his favorite target after the injury return for another season as well in Ty Lee.

The Blue Raiders don’t particularly care about running the ball. They are a classic spread, ‘chuck the ball around as much as possible’ offense. It will be really interesting to see if they do the same against UGA so early in the season. The Dawgs are strong up front and young on the back end. That should play right into Middle Tennessee’s strengths.

On the defensive side of the ball, the Blue Raiders are no pushover. They ranked 47th in the nation last season which is pretty impressive for a Conference USA side. They were equally balanced when it comes to both defending the run and the pass as well so there won’t be a specific weakness for the Dawgs to attack.

As Bill Connelly said in his preview of the side ‘you can win a lot of games by not being bad at anything’. That’s very true on the defensive side of the ball. As Connelly points out, the Blue Raiders ranked between 30th and 70th in every defensive metric. They are in short, solid if unspectacular in every way on that side of the ball. That means that traditionally, they’re difficult to break down.