ATHENS — They say for it to be a rivalry, both sides have to win. It’s been a while since that has happened in the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry, which renews on Saturday as the Bulldogs host the Auburn Tigers.
Georgia has not lost to Auburn since 2017, a game the Bulldogs avenged in the 2017 SEC championship game. The only current member of Georgia’s team who was even around the program at that point was Stetson Bennett, who was in his first year with the program as a walk-on.
You have to go even farther back to the last time Auburn beat Georgia in Athens, which last happened in 2005. When the Tigers have visited Athens in recent seasons, they’ve brought an incredible amount of offensive ineptitude. In Auburn’s last four games played at Sanford Stadium, it has more turnovers, eight, than scoring drives, seven.
Yet even with the one-sidedness of this series of late, the rivalry is still very real to Kirby Smart. He wouldn’t have brought it up in his opening comments to reporters this week were it not.
“I think when you talk about one of the oldest rivalries in college football, it’s always been a game that I know, as a player, I looked forward to playing in,” Smart said. “It’s been some tremendous games between the two teams, and our guys are looking forward to getting to play at home in front of a raucous crowd, great atmosphere.”
Smart has also pushed the significance of the rivalry onto the current players, even if many of them have never tasted defeat against Auburn.
Tight end Darnell Washington shared this week that Smart has been sprinkling in old clips from the rivalry to show how much it means. Though almost none of them have been recent, whether it be the 2007 blackout game or the 2013 Prayer at Jordan Hare, these two sides have produced plenty of iconic moments when they’ve played.
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“We know the history about it,” Washington said of the rivalry.
Usually, this game is played in November. But starting in 2020, this game has moved up to become an October game. Next year will see this game played in September for the first time in the history of the rivalry.
The tenor of this rivalry has no doubt taken a turn since Smart took over as the program’s head coach. He’s 6-1 against the Tigers as Georgia’s head coach. Add in the new timing of the game and the rivalry isn’t quite as intense as it had been in the late stages of the Mark Richt era.
Of course, it only takes one incident to re-ignite the flames and we may have gotten this week thanks in part to the comments made by Auburn center Brandon Council. The Auburn offense intends on coming into Athens and silencing the Sanford Stadium crowd with a fast start.
He also gave the Georgia defensive line some bulletin board material. Which members of the unit are very much aware of.
“I believe just them being able to, like, their third-down package,” Council said. “They got some interior stunts the kind of hinders the run game but we’re going to start off fast. If you start off fast, run the ball on them and keep them out of their third-down packages, really, we could demolish them, I believe personally, up front.”
As for what Georgia said, they’ve stuck to the usual talking points. Even with it being a rivalry game, they’re not over-hyping the opponent. Providing the proper amount of respect and blandness so as to not invigorate the underdog Tigers anymore than need be.
Auburn is a 30-point underdog entering this game, the largest margin in the recent history of this rivalry.
“We’re excited to play Auburn. Just the fact that it’s Auburn. You know it’s going to be electrifying,” wide receiver Kearis Jackson said. “I’m hyped for it and it’s hard not to be hyped for it. We’re excited to go play them and it’s going to be a fun game.”
Kearis Jackson excited for Georgia football-Auburn rivalry game
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