Let's talk about these football teams in Georgia...

The big three football teams in Georgia are the Atlanta Falcons, the Georgia Bulldogs, and the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. I mean no offense to Georgia Southern, Georgia State, Valdosta, or any of the high school teams, but when you mention football in Georgia, you think of one of those first three I mentioned. So let's talk about them.

The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets are off to a rather mediocre start. They lost their first game to Virginia Tech, then beat Presbyterian and Virginia by a combined score of 115-23, and then lost in overtime to Miami. The Jackets sit at 2-2 overall and 1-2 in the ACC. Georgia Tech's chances in the ACC look pretty dim, as Virginia Tech and Miami just might be the class of the ACC Coastal Division.

The run-run-run-maybe pass-run offense of Georgia Tech is fairly devastating, but their defense leaves a lot to be desired. The Jackets were up 36-19 on Miami and lost 42-36 in overtime. You can just about guess when the Jackets are going to throw the ball, because back-up QB Vad Lee enters in the game.

If I had to predict the Yellow Jacket's record at season's end, I would say 7-5, with losses to Clemson, BYU, and Georgia.

Speaking of Georgia, these Bulldogs are good. If you watched the game Saturday night against Vanderbilt, you saw a team who believed it was truly one of the five best teams in the country. Vanderbilt recently took South Carolina to the wire, losing 17-13. They've been within a touchdown of their last five SEC opponents. That is, until Saturday. You see, Saturday night in Athens, Vanderbilt ran into a buzzsaw named Georgia.

The Bulldogs are finally getting back to the full complement of players comprising their defense. They were without Bacarri Rambo, Alec Ogletree, Chase Vasser, and Sanders Commings. Commings and Vasser have been back since last week, and Rambo and Ogletree return next week against Tennessee. Georgia on Saturday held a rather talented Vanderbilt team to only 3 points. Though favored by only 14, Georgia went on to a 48-3 victory.

Aaron Murray may be the best QB in the SEC and with Georgia's defense playing at the level they are playing at, it's easy to see that Georgia could find themselves in a BCS game or better at the end of the year. To predict their record, I could see them going undefeated all the way to the SEC Championship Game. The biggest tests will be Florida and South Carolina.

Now, on to the NFL and the Atlanta Falcons. The Falcons are now 3-0. They beat the Chiefs, which isn't too surprising (then again, the Chiefs just beat New Orleans in the Superdome). They beat Denver, which was a good win that was marred by horrible officiating. And today, on a short week, they went to San Diego and beat the Chargers 27-3.

Matt Ryan is playing like an elite quarterback and the Falcon defense, under the leadership of Mike Nolan, is making other teams look bad. The Chargers were averaging 30 points per game before the Falcons shut them down. Michael Turner still has some gas in the tank, as does Tony Gonzalez. The White-Jones wideout tandem gives defensive coordinators nightmares.

Atlanta changed coordinators in the offseason, and the change appears to have worked. The 3-0 start is huge, especially when you realize that the Saints are 0-3. The Falcons have to keep up the pace, though. Since I've predicted everyone else's record, let's recap this one. Back in August, I predicted that Atlanta would go 11-5, but I can easily see this Falcons team winning 12 or 13 games.