GEORGIA With A Comeback In The Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry

What a game! I’m sure it had some fans scared for a moment. Me? not so much. First, I was actually at a Danny Gokey concert but second, I believe in my team. I only got to see the first half before heading to the concert but when I heard Georgia was in a dog fight I said a prayer for them. I knew Auburn had the lead but Georgia kept tying it up. My dad sent a text and told Auburn had scored and that we were gonna lose. I texted back '“no we ain’t.” And my dad wanted to bet. I didn’t know exactly how much time we had in the game and how we had been playing. But I texted my dad back. “I bet twenty bucks we win.” And it was on. And before the concert had started I got the news we had scored a touchdown with three minutes left in the game. Of course my dad told me we lost. But I checked believing we had won. And I was so thrilled when I knew we had done everything we could, and won. But this was no easy win. There are many things we could go over but we’ll just go over a few. First, we have our Quarterback. A long pass thrown over the head of Delp early in the game, a few short miss throws, an interception and a sack or two. That is where all the questions come from. Can he run when the pocket is pressured and gain yardage? Can he deliver long accurate passes into the end zone? Can he make the right plays when under pressure? Can he lead us to a National Championship? But his game wasn’t all bad. I will give him credit for helping lead us to a come-from-behind win. And it being his first SEC road game, he did a good job. He did his best and that’s all anyone can do. He had some great plays and passes. But we all know there needs to be more improvement if we want to make it to the playoffs. It doesn't matter how talented a Quarterback is if he doesn’t fit the team. We are having troubles with our running game and that is why I think we could at least put in a mobile Quarterback for a game and try it out. That has done wonders for this team for three seasons (two of which we went back to back National Champions). When you face big defenses in the SEC, you want a QB who can dodge defenders when pressured. Someone who can pass the football to a receiver when on the run. After Stetson Bennett IV left Georgia, I think everyone agreed we wanted a mobile QB for the 2023 season. It’s not like Georgia to score so slow (especially against small teams). It’s not like Georgia to trail behind unranked teams going into the second half. It’s not like Georgia’s offense to give up the chance to score big in the first quarter. I am not saying its all because of our Quarterback. I am sure it isn’t. But we have many talented veterans on our offense and the three big roles that had to be filled was at offensive coordinator, quarterback and placekicker. Something on our offense isn’t right. The pieces and the plays aren’t all fitting together. But it’s the same way on the other side of the ball. It’s not like our defense to give up points so soon in the first half. It’s not like our defense to give up so many points. Its not like our defense to miss tackles. Its not like our defense to allow a team to run through us for 200 hundred yards. I am not saying our team is perfect. But I have watched this team for years now and I’ve watched these players play for this team, I know the elite team that we have. And how we need to find that elite identity that we have sooner rather than later. We saw what a mobile QB did for Auburn against us. What could our offense do against other teams if we had a mobile Quarterback? It’s a simple question but I think it could work for our offense better than we realize. These veterans are used to a dual QB. A guy that they could block for when he wanted to run. A guy that could pass the football when on the move. A guy that, when the pocket was collapsing, could move fast enough to make a play out of it and gain yardage. Now for one of the biggest role’s in this game. Wideout Ladd McConkey returning from a back injury to give Georgia a chance against the tigers. On three 3rd-downs, he caught three passes to make them all first downs. He was ready to play and gave his team a lift when they needed it most. If Georgia wants explosive plays, they’ve got it in number 84 and number 19. My dad reminded me that we can’t put everything on Bower’s. As humans, every player will have bad games ( I know, that seems like something that rarely happens with Bower’s) but it’s true. He’s had games that weren’t as good before. He’s had dropped passes and passes he missed before. My dad put it something like this. “We can’t just rely on Bower’s because as humans you will have bad games. So let’s say we give all the eggs to Bower’s and he has a bad day and drops all of them.” Think about it….it’s true. Bower’s is an unbelievable athlete and all of us dawgs are lucky to have him playing for our team, but no one is perfect. That’s why I think it is important that we have these other plays we can pass to and handoff to, so that everything is not on Bower’s shoulders. So having Ladd McConkey back, from a back injury (pun intended) is some of the best news for this team. When the game is tight and you need something big, I am all for delivering the pass to Bower’s. But when you really need a big plat to win a game, I believe you have what you need in Bower’s and McConkey and so many other players on this team. Every player has to learn to work as a teach with one another and build each other up. As Georgia fans, you can’t thank Bower’s and McConkey enough for stepping up against the tigers. Everyone talks about how we wouldn’t have won the game without Bower’s it’s probably true but don’t forget about McConkey (receiving three third down passes to make them all a first down). He came back from an injury and I believe those first downs were what won the game in many ways. Every player had something to do with us winning this game and we are so thankful for their hard work. But you can’t mention this win without mentioning Peyton Woodring. I believe he had three field goal misses so far this season before stepping up to face Auburn and that came with some doubts from many fans. My dad said if he missed another He’d lose his job. I could joke about it and him missing but I don’t mean much by it. I wanted to believe in this new kid who wanted to be there for his team. I hated seeing him miss those field goals and while my dad was upset, I simply felt bad for him. But I knew that if they had a freshman stepping in, after Podlesny graduated, then Smart must know something us fans don’t. I read some posts about Woodring and I quickly realized that we had real talent at placekicker. Now that I think about it, I feel like i’m playing a Spiderman role, in the sense of that I am always looking out for the little guy. They are the ones I want to support even more. I did it with Stetson as a doubted walk-on, I did it with Podlesny as a walk-on (although I didn’t know he was a walk-on for most of his career) and I did it for McConkey when he came to Athens not being ranked the best out of high school. I am not saying I knew these were going to be awesome players. I guess I just believed they could be. And there is just something about cheering for the player that other fans might not believe in. And Woodring, well he did a great job against Auburn. I don’t care about the missed field goals in the other games and I dont care about how long or short the kicks were that he made. He made two game-tying clutch kicks against Auburn, in the midst of all the noise. I can’t imagine the pressure, knowing your field goal will tie the game. But he handled it perfectly. He may be a freshman but I believe our team is in good hands with extra points and field goals. I give him credit for winning that starting position as a freshman. Punters and Place-kickers have to work so hard to get to play because you only need one guy for the job. But congrats to Woodring with earning the SEC Honers after his great game. Now, as for Auburn…I’ll give it to them for their running game. They ran right through our defense many times. The QB runs were critical for them, as it was for us our last three seasons. We tried to get the passing game going while Auburn had the running game going with no problem. Our defense didn’t shut them down like we wanted, but they stopped them just enough for us to win the game and they deserve credit for doing their best. Our offense was far from perfect too. Many times our running got nowhere and our passing was off on some big plays. But I am thankful for the job these dawgs did because although something isn’t working, we don’t always know what it is and there is more reasons than one on why our team hasn’t looked its best. Back to Auburn for a minute. I have heard there are rumors that Auburn was cheating but with no way for anyone to prove it. My dad told me about it as we were watching the second half of the game Sunday. And I hadn’t realized it until having heard it. I simply told my dad that if its true, “they were desperate.”  How on earth could Auburn cheat? Yeah, I thought the same thing. But with each first down Georgia scored, Auburn had a player go down with an “injury,” Therefore it slowed down Georgia’s momentum. It seems crazy, right? But as I watched the game, I couldn’t believe how perfectly timed Auburn’s injuries were. With almost every one of Georgia’s first downs, an Auburn player was down on the field. Now, no one can prove if this is true and I don’t know if it is. But that won’t stop us dawgs from wondering “how scared and desperate was Auburn?” Only Auburn knows if it’s true or not. But I don’t care if it can win a game, I don’t want my Dawgs ever pulling a stunt like that and cheating. Because that is not the team we are. I would rather play fair and lose then cheat and win. Its that simple. This game was pretty different from our last Georgia-Auburn games. One of our past games was also a little too close, but one of our games was also a great win. But we had a different team and a different Quarterback. This is a new team. A new version of the Dawgs. The 2023 Dawgs. I think its possibly that Auburn has been getting a little better each year. And Georgia has lost some top players to the last two drafts. Yesterday I was thinking, and I believe a football team can get bad a lot quicker than it can get good. It doesn’t matter if you get the top ranked players out of high school, they still have to learn college level football and get good enough to play. But when your top players graduate or leave for the NFL, a team can get bad as quick as you can snap your fingers. That’s why the recruiting is very important. But you want to have some veterans on your team that know the game and can help the freshman. Georgia and Auburn were tied up for a lot of the game but before Woodring’s field goals, we were trailing. Finally Beck hit Bower’s down the field for the winning touchdown with only three minutes left in the game. And then the interception sealed the deal for Georgia.

Play of the game

I have to give the play of the game to Beck’s long pass down the field to Bower’s for the game winning touchdown.

Defensive MVP

The Defensive MVP goes to Malaki Starks for that interception that sealed the deal for Georgia and left no chance for an overtime game.

Offensive MVP

This is hard because so many players did so much in this game and I loved seeing McConkey out on the field and getting to play and get those three critical first downs and as always Bower’s did an incredible job and remained unstoppable and I don’t know if we would have won without him. But I’ve got to give the offensive MVP to freshman placekicker Peyton Woodring. After some tough games, he really came out on the field and showed up for his team. He did an awesome job and showed why he won the placekicking job. With all the pressure and all the noise, he was still able to send two field goal attempts through the middle of the goal posts to tie the game both times. That’s a lot of pressure on a freshman but he handled it with responsibility and no doubt helped us win the game.

Go Dawgs and God bless!

Georgia 27 Auburn 20