Morning, y’all!
I know we’ve spent a fair bit of this week’s newsletters looking back at the Alabama game — can you blame me, with how crazy it was?
But today we’ve got to switch our attention firmly to Auburn.
On paper, Georgia certainly overmatches the Tigers, but this Auburn team will be looking for an upset:
Georgia is seeking its 10th straight win over the Auburn Tigers this Saturday, but Auburn quarterback Byrum Brown believes the newly anointed No. 1 team in the land has shown some flaws he can exploit.
While Georgia went to battle in Alabama this past week, Auburn was on a bye week, watching from afar and scouting out its next opponent.
What they saw was Georgia virtually shut down one of the best offenses in college football on its home turf.
The Bulldogs held Alabama to just 17 points. Alabama was also held to season lows in total yardage (346) and passing yards (185). Quarterback Keelon Russell completed a season-worst 53% of his passes with one touchdown and had one fumble.
He was sacked a season-high four times and the Georgia defense tallied six tackles for loss.
Even with that, Brown believes Georgia has holes that the Tigers can take advantage of.
“Was able to sit and watch them play against Alabama and see what Alabama did. So it’s huge. Allows you to get a week of prep ahead,” Brown said. “… Alabama moved the ball well against them, so absolutely going to use that.”
When asked what stands out about the overall makeup of Georgia’s defense, he said it is a “very sound” group, but also showed confidence they can find success.
“Discipline, physical. They get after the QB, make you take what they’re giving. That’s really it,” Brown said. “Very sound, but we got the right plan in place to go attack them and just do our job; we’ll be fine.”
Auburn is coming off a 24-14 loss at Tennessee two weeks ago, being held to 345 total yards; Brown was held to 159 yards passing on 22 completions and he was responsible for all three Tiger turnovers.
This season, Brown has thrown for 1,055 yards, added a team-high 344 rushing yards and scored 11 total touchdowns, but has thrown seven interceptions (132nd in FBS).
The Tigers want to be an up-tempo offense that is physical and can stretch the ball down the field with explosive passes. Outside of being number one in seconds between plays (21.5), all of Auburn’s wants feed into Georgia’s strengths.
Not often this year has Auburn proved to be truly dominant at the line of scrimmage. Auburn ranks 50th in rushing and shows no ability to protect the quarterback.
Read Hunter DeLauder’s full story here.
Auburn coach braces for Georgia missing All-American linebacker
Auburn coach Alex Golesh says his Tigers are excited about the opportunity to play “a big-time program on a big-time stage” at No. 1-ranked Georgia on Saturday.
Auburn, however, will be without preseason All-American linebacker Xavier Atkins, who’s tied for the team lead with three sacks and second with 37 tackles.
“We will be without Xavier Atkins this week,” Golesh said at his Monday news conference. “We’ll revisit it next week when we meet again on Monday here. We’ll keep it in-house in terms of anything beyond that — that’ll be the only piece of it that I will be addressing.”
The Tigers (3-2, 1-2 SEC) have a storied history with the Bulldogs (6-0, 4-0), owning an 18-18 mark against Georgia in Athens in what’s known as the “Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry,” which stands as the second-most played series with 130 games between the teams dating back to 1892.
Auburn also has three regular-season wins against AP No. 1-ranked teams dating back to the start of the BCS era (1998), which ties Texas A&M for the most in college football.
But for all that historical data, Auburn’s first-year head coach knows it still comes down to blocking and tackling, and that’s why he and his staff did a deep dive into themselves during their bye week.
“I thought the intent was positive … The mentality of the team is we have so much to prove,” Golesh said. “When we are at our best, we can play at the highest level of football, when we’re not, we’re just good enough to get embarrassed.”
Golesh, much like Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer last week, emphasized the importance of settling in early and getting off to a good start, as UGA has outscored opponents 164-40 in the first quarters of games.
“The biggest thing we are trying to get to is, we’ve always done an elite job from the in-game adjustments standpoint in the sense of this is how they’re attacking us, this is where we go,” Golesh said.
“I feel like we’ve done an elite job with that this year. Go back and say like, can we get to that even earlier in our game plan process, where early on in the game you’re on the right thing to go create efficient runs. It can be the running back, it can be the quarterback whatever you feel your advantage can be.”
Read Mike Griffith’s full story here.
Trivia time
Georgia has had 17 touchdown receptions so far this season. How many players have caught a touchdown pass?
Georgia All-American a surprise addition to injury report
Georgia All-American KJ Bolden was a surprise addition to the Bulldogs injury report on Wednesday night.
Bolden is UGA’s fourth-leading tackler with 22 stops this season and one of four players with an interception.
The Tigers will be without Atkins and also listed offensive lineman Tai Buster as being out, along with tight end Hunter Herring.
Georgia tailback Nate Frazier, who injured his rib in a Sept. 26 game at Arkansas, was not listed on the injury report.
Frazier was not on last week’s injury report, either, but he was a late scratch after experiencing pain during warmups before Georgia’s game at Alabama.
Frazier has 211 rushing yards on 26 carries and five touchdowns in three games, including the two carries for 9 yards he had against Vanderbilt on Oct. 3.
Tailback Chauncey Bowens is listed as “out” for the Auburn game.
Read Mike’s full story on the injury report here.
Trivia answer
13
