Many words could be said, but few do the job in this case. Georgia is a much better football team than Auburn right now.
A rivalry that stretches back to before 1900 is currently incredibly one-sided without much indication that it will change soon.
The Georgia Bulldogs got off to a slow start today, but eventually beat down the Tigers for the sixth straight contest.
An outstanding individual effort by Auburn sophomore Jarquez Hunter on a 62-yard touchdown late in the fourth quarter kept Auburn from suffering the second largest margin of defeat to Georgia in 127 matchups.
Take a look at three things that led to Georgia’s 42-10 victory over Auburn.
Offensive line play
The disparity in offensive line play between these to squads was glaring.
The Tigers offense struggled all day to create any room for tailbacks on rushing attempts and repeatedly suffered run-throughs from Georgia pass rushers throughout the afternoon.
The only plays that provided positive yardage on the ground for Auburn were designed pass plays where quarterback Robby Ashford scrambled for good gains.
The Tigers managed to accrue just 41 yards on the ground from players other than Ashford.
On the other hand, Georgia completely wore down the Auburn defense in the second half on the way to 292 yards and six touchdowns on the ground on the day.
Even though the game of football has evolved to a much more open style that often relies on the passing attack, it is still nearly impossible to overcome a drastic mismatch at the line of scrimmage.
Unfortunately for Auburn, that proved to be the case yet again today.
Undisciplined play
Auburn needed to play a virtually perfect game in order to have a chance to steal a win in Athens, and the Tigers fell well short of that against the Bulldogs.
The visiting Tigers committed 10 penalties in Sanford Stadium. It is not unusual for teams to struggle on the road, but the high number of costly penalties repeatedly put the Auburn in difficult positions.
In addition to penalties, Auburn suffered dropped passes, missed tackles, whiffs on blocks, and a completely unforced turnover.
Especially on offense, this has been the story of the 2022 Auburn season.
The Tigers must greatly improve in this area of the game if they hope to find another SEC win on the schedule.
Questionable call
If Auburn was going to beat Georgia, unexpected plays were needed in the Tigers’ favor.
Coach Bryan Harsin attempted to create one of those situations late in the first quarter.
The Auburn defense had showed great resolve to that point, but the offense was experiencing its now customary struggles.
The Tigers elected to attempt a fake punt on 4th down and six from its own 34-yard line.
Auburn tight end John Samuel Shenker was the ball carrier on the fake punt attempt and was tackled well short of the line to gain.
This gave Georgia the ball on a short field for the first time in the contest and quickly led to the game’s first score. The Bulldogs never looked back from there.
Surely that decision is not worth 32 points, but it felt unwise even at that time in a tie game.
Auburn needed to make up a very real talent gap by having great schemes and timely surprise calls from its coaches. Unfortunately, neither of those things happened in Athens.
Zack Shaw is a contributing writer for Yellowhammer News and former walk-on for the Auburn Tigers.
