ATHENS — Georgia football sophomore offensive lineman Solomon Kindley made it clear he’s not overlooking Auburn for several reasons.
First and foremost, Kindley knows the No. 24-ranked Tigers (6-3, 3-3 SEC) have bad intentions for him and the No 5-ranked Bulldogs (8-1, 6-1) in the 7 p.m. game on Saturday at Sanford Stadium.
“Auburn’s trying to come up here and ruin our season, they can really destroy our season, and destroy our hopes and dreams of anything else past this game, for after the SEC Championship,” Kindley said. “We know what they can do, and we know what they are capable of.”
A loss to Auburn could eliminate the Bulldogs from the College Football Playoff picture even if they were to defeat Alabama in the SEC Championship Game.
It was the Tigers who knocked Georgia out of the No. 1 spot in the College Football Playoff Rankings last season, too.
Auburn humbled the Bulldogs 40-17 on The Plains, the Tigers defensive front containing future NFL starting running backs Nick Chubb (11 carries, 27 yards) and Sony Michel (9 carries, 22 yards) in what became a rout.
Kindley started made his final start of the 2017 season in that game, losing his starting job at right guard to Ben Cleveland the next week and for the remainder of the season.
Kindley — who has started every game this season at left guard — remembers it was Derek Brown, a 6-foot-5, 330-pounder from Sugar Hill, Ga., lined up across from him in that loss to Auburn last season.
“Everybody in the country knows they’ve got a really good front and they’ve got four good guys that are going to rush the passer,” Kindley said. “They’re really heavy, there’s not too many times throughout the season that you have four dominant defensive linemen.
“Sometimes you play a game and you’ve got one on one side, one on the other side. But Auburn, you’ve got them dominant all over the field.”
The Bulldogs won the rematch in the SEC title game, 28-7, but that was after the Tigers had won a physical and emotional 26-14 game against Alabama.
This Auburn team is fresh off two wins and looking to save its season.
“We got at it even harder because we know we have so much at stake and so much behind us coming from this game,” Kindley said. “We know Auburn is coming in here to try to ruin our season. We study them and look at them like they are even tougher.”
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