Georgia has time to study Tech’s offense

Ordinarily, Georgia coach Mark Richt wouldn’t want an open date before the last game of the regular season. “You’d rather try to space them out, [one] every four games or so,” he said.

But this time is an exception.

Georgia has its second open date of the season this week, providing extra time to prepare for the Nov. 29 regular-season finale against Georgia Tech’s triple-option offense.

“I think it’s valuable to have the break where it is,” Richt said Sunday. “With Georgia Tech running a new system — the type of system you really don’t see by anybody else — it’s going to take some time to try to simulate it and try to get an idea of how to defend it.”

First, Georgia will try to recover from a stretch of six games in six weeks, the past four away from Athens.

The Bulldogs aren’t scheduled to resume practice until Wednesday and Thursday. They’ll meet, review film from the Auburn game and do some weight-lifting and running on Monday, then lift and run again Tuesday.

Meanwhile, five things we learned and observed about Georgia and the SEC over the weekend:

• Bowl in focus. The Capital One Bowl isn’t in Georgia’s wallet yet. But Saturday’s 17-13 win at Auburn means the Bulldogs will finish the season with the third best record in the SEC, putting them in prime position to play in the Jan. 1 bowl in Orlando.

The Capital One gets the first pick of SEC teams after the BCS. So if both of the league’s division champs — Alabama and Florida — play in BCS games, Georgia is first in line for the Capital One berth.

Of course, the bowl could rethink that if the Bulldogs lose to the Yellow Jackets.

• Go figure. How weird is this? Both Vanderbilt and Mississippi — but neither Auburn nor Tennessee — are eligible for bowls.

Vandy and Ole Miss won their sixth games of the season Saturday to clinch bowl eligibility — Vandy for the first time since 1982 and Ole Miss for the first time since 2003.

Meanwhile, Auburn’s loss to Georgia means the Tigers won’t be eligible for a bowl unless they upset No. 1 Alabama Nov. 29. Auburn hasn’t missed out on a bowl since 1999, and Tennessee — with the second most bowl appearances in NCAA history (47) — will miss out for the second time in four years.

• Improbable underdog. If Alabama beats Auburn, the Crimson Tide will arrive at the SEC championship game at the Georgia Dome Dec. 6 with an unbeaten record and No. 1 ranking.

And yet the Tide likely will be the underdog against Florida, which has beaten its past six opponents by an average of almost 40 points after whipping South Carolina 56-6 Saturday.

• Slippage in BCS. Not that it matters much at this point, but Georgia slipped a notch in the latest BCS standings released Sunday, falling from last week’s No. 10 to No. 11.

The Bulldogs swapped places with Ohio State. The Buckeyes, like the Bulldogs, are 9-2.

In the three components of the BCS formula, Georgia is ranked No. 13 by the USA Today coaches’ poll, No. 12 by the Harris Interactive poll and No. 7 on average by the computer polls.

• Different result. If what turned out to be Georgia’s game-winning touchdown pass against Auburn looked familiar, there’s a reason:

It was the same play the Bulldogs ran earlier this season against Tennessee — except that time a wide-open A.J. Green dropped the throw from Matthew Stafford at the goal line on probably the lowlight of Green’s superb freshman season.

This time the pass wasn’t as good, but a leaping, stretching Green hauled it in as he crossed through the middle of the end zone.

“It was a play we have been working on,” Stafford said. “I’m glad [Green] got a chance to run it again. I didn’t make such a great throw, but he did a great job of going up and getting it.”