Saturday’s sport was one which Dawgs followers will probably be speaking about for … possibly a day or two?
Georgia’s eighth straight win over the Auburn Tigers in the 129th installment of the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry was a strong effort that noticed Kirby Smart’s Bulldogs pulling away in the fourth quarter.
But on a day of main school soccer upsets that noticed Vandy topple No. 1 Alabama and Arkansas beat No. 4 Tennessee, the No. 5 Dawgs quietly took care of enterprise and averted the upset bug with a 31-13 victory over their longest-standing rival.
Still, it wasn’t the type of sport that had followers at Sanford Stadium barking enthusiastically with pleasure. (More about that later.)
Quarterback Carson Beck fingers the ball off to Georgia again Trevor Etienne, who ran for 88 yards Saturday. (Hyosub Shin/AJC) (HYOSUB SHIN / AJC/Dawgnation)
After that they had performed fairly uninspired ball in the primary halves of their two earlier video games, Smart had advised ABC previous to kickoff Saturday that he needed to see his crew “start fast.”
I wouldn’t precisely name what we noticed in the primary quarter towards Auburn a quick begin, however the Dawgs did rating on their first drive of the sport, as working again Travis Etienne capped off a methodical drive with a 2-yard rating in the primary of his two touchdowns of the day, and Georgia held the Tigers to only a area objective going into the second quarter.
But the rest of the primary half remained largely a defensive battle, with the Dawgs tacking on one other rating with quarterback Carson Beck throwing the primary of his two TD passes in the sport, this one to Dominic Lovett, for a 14-3 Georgia halftime lead.
Auburn tried a 54-yard area objective try late in the second quarter, however it was blocked by Georgia security Dan Jackson, who performed all the sport together with his ordinary 110% effort. (The Dawgs’ D may use a number of extra like him.)
The second half obtained off to a faltering begin for the Dawgs, too, because the offense had a three-and-out on its first drive and Auburn’s Jarquez Hunter — praised by Smart as one of the best working again Georgia has confronted this season — ripped off a 38-yard TD sprint to tighten the rating to an uncomfortably shut 14-10 with 9:45 left in the third quarter.
Auburn working again Jarquez Hunter (27) is stopped by Georgia linebacker Raylen Wilson (5) and Georgia linebacker Chaz Chambliss (32) throughout Saturday’s sport. (Hyosub Shin/AJC) (HYOSUB SHIN / AJC/Dawgnation)
One of the positives of the sport for Georgia was the offense rediscovering its working sport (primarily in the particular person of Etienne, with an help from freshman Nate Frazier), which was on show in the Dawgs’ subsequent scoring drive, the place 9 of the 12 performs had been on the bottom. That drive culminated with Etienne’s second TD of the day.
Getting just a little determined because the fourth quarter started, Auburn coach Hugh Freeze selected the Tigers’ subsequent drive to go for it on 4th-and-1 from his crew’s personal 44-yard line, solely to have Dawgs linebacker Raylen Wilson sack Tigers QB Payton Thorne for a 4-yard loss.
The Dawgs then capitalized on nice area place with a fast drive that ended with Beck throwing a brief TD cross to Dillon Bell to make the rating 28-10.
Aided by penalties towards the sloppy Dawgs, Auburn obtained into scoring place once more with 1st-and-goal on the Georgia 10 however the Dawgs’ protection stiffened and the Tigers had been held to a area objective, to make it 28-13.
Dawgs working again Trevor Etienne lunges into the tip zone for a first-half landing towards Auburn. (Hyosub Shin/AJC) (HYOSUB SHIN / AJC/Dawgnation)
Georgia then launched one other drive, with gambler Smart additionally deciding to go for it on 4th-and-1 and the Dawgs making it. A pleasant drive was derailed by a hail of yellow flags that resulted in the Dawgs dealing with an uncommon 1st-and-40, however they regained sufficient of the misplaced territory for Peyton Woodring so as to add a 47-yard area objective to place UGA up 31-13 with 1:50 left in the sport. And that’s the best way it ended.
Overall, it was a typical Georgia-Auburn slobberknocker of a sport. Georgia typically had a very good day on offense, with no turnovers. The Dawgs’ errors had been principally in phrases of penalties, and the working sport lastly obtained going in second half (let’s hope that development continues). Smart indicated after the sport that he thinks his crew has a greater working assault than it has proven up to now.
On the opposite aspect of the ball, the protection did nicely total, although there nonetheless had been too many damaged arm tackles. The Dawgs additionally gave up a number of explosive performs on protection, although the Georgia offense additionally managed to notch a number of lengthy performs of its personal.
Georgia defensive lineman Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins will get one of his two sacks of Auburn QB Payton Thorne. (Hyosub Shin/AJC) (HYOSUB SHIN / AJC/Dawgnation)
But the patchwork, injury-plagued offensive line had an inconsistent day and gave up 2 sacks.
Beck accomplished 23 of 29 passes for 240 yards and a couple of TDs, whereas Etienne lastly began exhibiting star potential, working 16 occasions for 88 yards and a couple of TDs and catching 6 passes for 36 yards. Georgia ran for 141 yards and had 381 yards of whole offense on 66 performs.
Smart mentioned after the sport that he thought Georgia was getting near what he thinks the working sport is succesful of attaining. “We have good backs,” he mentioned “We have a quarterback that gets us into the right run, and we’d hit some of those for 20 and 30, and we’re not — and that’s frustrating. A couple of those times I thought we could cash them in, but we did make a lot of plays in the run game.”
The Georgia protection held the Tigers’ run-pass-option offense to its season low of 13 factors however did surrender 337 yards on 58 performs. The Dawgs’ main tacklers had been Jackson with 7 and Malaki Starks with 6. Defensive finish Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins had two of the Dawgs’ three sacks.
Georgia vast receiver Dillon Bell is congratulated by head coach Kirby Smart after scoring a landing in the course of the second half of the Auburn sport. (Hyosub Shin/AJC) (HYOSUB SHIN / AJC/Dawgnation)
Summing up the protection’s day, Smart mentioned he was happy that his crew had a number of “opportunistic stops. We had some fourth-down stops that were huge.”
Georgia now leads the all-time collection with Auburn, 65-56-8.
Even although it wasn’t probably the most thrilling sport, it nonetheless was an excellent day for the Dawgs in the large image, what with sudden losses for Alabama, Tennessee, USC, Missouri and Michigan leveling the enjoying floor for groups probably competing for at-large playoff slots. More chaos in school soccer is nice, in that it buys Georgia, which already has a loss and faces a frightening schedule, some respiratory room.
So, that covers what occurred on the sphere Saturday. However, there’s one other side of the sport that bears dialogue after Smart departed from his ordinary reward for the followers in Sanford Stadium by calling out the Georgia crowd as a disappointment.
In his postgame discuss with DJ Shockley of the Bulldogs’ radio community, the Georgia head coach granted that it was “hot out there today” however mentioned he felt there was a scarcity of game-affecting ardour on the half of the followers. “I can’t get crowd noise. … We’ve got to do a better job as fans.”
He’s proper that it wasn’t probably the most fired-up Sanford Stadium crowd of the Smart period, however there most likely had been a number of contributing elements regardless of the warmth.
It would possibly come as a shock to the oldsters who thought it was a good suggestion to shut the Sanford Drive bridge to pedestrian visitors or let chilly scorching canine be served in the grab-and-go concession traces, however not the whole lot about Dooley Field at Sanford Stadium is conducive to a enjoyable day for Georgia’s followers.
For one factor, my buddy Joel Provano discovered the incessant and really loud prerecorded music Saturday to be an issue. “Maybe if there wasn’t 1,000 decibels of noise coming from the scoreboard the crowd would be louder,” Joel mentioned. “You couldn’t hold a conversation, couldn’t hear the PA announcer, couldn’t hear the referees. It was nonstop.”
That wasn’t a generational criticism, both, with my daughter Olivia agreeing, saying the music was “so loud you cannot have a conversation; it’s uncomfortably loud.” Olivia additionally complained that she couldn’t hear the officers explaining penalties as a result of of the music.
Head coach Kirby Smart referred to as out Georgia followers at Sanford Stadium Saturday for not making sufficient noise. (Hyosub Shin/AJC) (HYOSUB SHIN / AJC/Dawgnation)
However, the character of the Bulldogs’ season up to now may need extra to do with the subdued crowd noise than stadium circumstances.
Part of it may need been a holdover from the earlier week’s disappointing go to to Tuscaloosa, however primarily I feel it’s as a result of this crew simply hasn’t proven the type of magic but that will get a crowd actually juiced.
Even Eric Zeier, in his post-game summation on the radio broadcast, referred to it as “workmanlike” and “pedestrian. … the way we played, and in the stands.”
OK, so, yeah, Smart was proper that Saturday’s Sanford Stadium crowd was not engaged and disruptive sufficient.
But, once more, it’s solely honest to level out that this crew additionally has underwhelmed up to now.
This was Georgia’s first significant residence sport in a season that was frontloaded with too many street/impartial video games and this crew feels extra mortal than anticipated.
But Dawgs followers do must be appreciative that we nonetheless are witnessing the glory period of UGA soccer. And we don’t get that many residence video games every year, so followers have to do their half. As was proven in the 2022 win over then No. 1-ranked Tennessee, the house crowd has the facility to have an effect on the sport in a very optimistic means for the Dawgs.
So, let’s step it up a bit for the remaining of this 12 months’s residence video games (which embrace one other go to by Tennessee) and recognize what we've got in the Smart period.
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