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[su_spacer size=”40″] Every season there are two or three teams in the preseason top ten that turn in disappointing seasons. This year, two of those are Georgia and Auburn. These two ancient rivals have met so many times with so much on the line. This is not a special year for either team.
[su_spacer size=”40″] Still, the rivalries of November carry pride, momentum, recruiting stakes and, history. Few rivalries in college football can match the history between these two.
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Georgia and Auburn began playing football against one another in Atlanta at Piedmont Park back in 1892. These two campuses, separated by 175 miles, are a little less than three hours apart in today’s drive time, save for game day and/or Atlanta traffic. It is pretty amazing to think that when the Bulldogs and Auburn first played, there were very few horseless carriages making their way through the streets of Athens, Auburn or Atlanta.
[su_spacer size=”40″] Through the years, decades and centuries, there have naturally been numerous swings in momentum between the Bulldogs and Tigers. What has made this one truly unique is that through the years, the road team and the underdog — often the same — has won an inordinate number of times. No school through the years has taken more from Georgia than Auburn. A loss to the Tigers cost the 11-1 Bulldogs the undisputed 1942 national title. Georgia and Auburn were both undefeated in 1971, and the Bulldogs fell to the Tigers in Athens, the lone setback in an 11-1 campaign. The 8-1 Dogs tied Auburn in 1978, and that lone league blemish cost Georgia a share of the Southeastern Conference championship with national champion Alabama. The following year there would be no conference title, as a pedestrian Georgia team lost just once in league play, to Auburn. In 1983, 8-0-1 Georgia lost to 8-1 Auburn in a match-up of No. 3 vs. No. 4, which cost the Bulldogs a fourth straight SEC championship and shot at a second national title in four years. Losses to Auburn cost the Bulldogs SEC titles in 1987 and 1988.
[su_spacer size=”40″] Moving on to the 21st century, this rivalry has taken some truly strange turns. Tommy Tuberville led Auburn to outstanding success in the 2000’s, while Mark Richt had taken over at the Georgia helm and piloted the Bulldogs to the 2002 SEC championship, then two more top ten finishes in 2003 and 2004. In 2005, the Bulldogs list of devastating losses to Auburn was extended, as the Tigers hit a fourth down play ripe with controversy, ups and downs and emotional swings, and nipped the Bulldogs 31-30. Georgia would win the SEC title, but that loss to Auburn on the heels of a gut-wrenching 14-10 loss to Florida extinguished any dreams of a national championship. At that point, Richt’s record against the Tigers was 2-3.
[su_spacer size=”40″] Things in this most interesting of series then took an intriguing turn … and twist.
[su_spacer size=”40″] In a typical Georgia-Auburn game in 2006 on the plains, the 6-4 Bulldogs destroyed once-beaten, fifth-ranked Auburn 37-15 in a game that wasn’t that close. That was the underdog and the road team winning. Very Georgia-Auburn.
[su_spacer size=”40″] A year later, Georgia would black out Sanford Stadium and clean Auburn’s clocks 45-20 en route to an 11-2 record and No. 2 final national ranking.
[su_spacer size=”40″] The series turned completely Georgia’s way. Richt has led the Bulldogs to victories over Auburn in seven of the past nine seasons. The Dogs four game winning streak over the Tigers from 2006-2009 was the program’s longest since winning four in a row from 1944¬48, tying in 1949, then winning three more from 1950-52.
[su_spacer size=”40″] For longtime Georgia fans, this success over Auburn has been particularly sweet, especially considering the aforementioned devastation and disappointment delivered by the Tigers directly to the hearts and trophy case of the red and black. A stretch of seven losses in eight seasons from 1983-1990 was particularly painful, as the Tigers coached by former Georgia All-American Pat Dye raided the Peach State for top prospects and cost the Bulldogs numerous championships. The Dogs were of course coached by former Auburn standout player Vince Dooley, legendary College Football Hall of Famer, from 1964-88.
[su_spacer size=”40″] Fast forward back to the 21st century.
[su_spacer size=”40″] Auburn would win the national championship in 2010, defeating Georgia 49-31.
[su_spacer size=”40″] It was a one year anomaly.
[su_spacer size=”40″] In 2011, the Bulldogs annihilated the defending champs 45-7. Then in 2012, the worst Auburn team in modern times got pummeled by the Bulldogs 38-0 on the plains. Georgia would go 12-2, and miss out on the SEC Championship and a shot at the national title by one play and five yards.
[su_spacer size=”40″] Auburn went 3-9.
[su_spacer size=”40″] Gene Chizik, coach of the Tigers national title team just two years prior was fired. Chizik had been the defensive coordinator for Auburn’s outstanding 13-0 SEC Championship team that finished No. 2 nationally under Tuberville’s watch.
[su_spacer size=”40″] Tuberville led Auburn to six straight victories over Alabama from 2002-2007. Unprecedented. He was fired after the ’08 season.
[su_spacer size=”40″] Auburn took the same route, bringing in Gus Malzahn from Arkansas State. Malzahn was the offensive coordinator for Auburn’s 2010 national championship team, piloted by Heisman Trophy winner Cam Newton, who began his career at Florida.
[su_spacer size=”40″] With a Georgia transfer, who was dismissed from the team in Athens, Nick Marshall at quarterback, the Tigers put together another dream season. Auburn chalked up two of the biggest plays in school history, including “The Prayer at Jordan Hare,” when Marshall’s Hail Mary on fourth-and-18 was caught by Ricardo Louis after a pair of Bulldogs fought for an interception, instead of knocking the ball down. One of those two players, Trey Matthews was dismissed from Georgia. He now plays for Auburn, and presumably sees himself on Jordan Hare’s giant video board for their pregame highlight reel, right next to the heroics of Pat Sullivan and Terry Beasely in 1971 and Bo Jackson in 1985. And that play in 2005.
[su_spacer size=”40″] The pass thrown by a former Georgia player, partially poorly defended by who would turn out to be yet another former Bulldog player, producing arguably the biggest play in Auburn history. The Tigers would have another all-time famous play, the “kick six” to beat Alabama. They would win the SEC championship again, play for the national title and come up just short against Florida State.
[su_spacer size=”40″] Last season, with the game back in Athens, the Bulldogs rolled to a 34-7 win.
So in three of four years, Georgia has won by 38, 38 and 27. The season prior and the one in the midst of those Bulldog blowouts Auburn won and played for a national title.
[su_spacer size=”40″] If one team, in a grand rivalry, now tied 55-55-8, wins seven times in nine years, that is the team that should play for the big prize twice. Right?
[su_spacer size=”40″] Not with Georgia — Auburn.
[su_spacer size=”40″] No, not in this series, with the 2013 circumstances more twisted than corkscrew pasta.
[su_spacer size=”40″] The team that won twice in nine years has played for the whole thing twice.
[su_spacer size=”40″] Richt’s 9-5 record against Auburn, including the 7-2 mark the last nine (which would be 9-1 in the last 10 were it not for the two biggest passes in Auburn annals), is one of his great accomplishments.
[su_spacer size=”40″] But those two years, Auburn cashed in.
[su_spacer size=”40″] Such is the crux of this series. Strange things happen. And simple pigskin logic rarely applies when it comes to the oldest rivalry in the South.
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