WRAPPIN' IT UP: Auburn @ Georgia
Hey everyone. Well, that was an interesting game.
Auburn had control and lost it. So it goes.
Here are some stats and quotes that may interest you:
Photo credit: Todd Van Emst/Auburn University
Questions? Comments? Post directly to the blog below or email me at jgtate@gannett.com.
Auburn had control and lost it. So it goes.
Here are some stats and quotes that may interest you:
- THIRD DOWNS: Auburn (5-of-13); Georgia (5-of-11)
- Auburn and Georgia both had 38 carries. Auburn gained 115 yards. Georgia gained 169 yards.
- Demond Washington set a school record with 202 KOR yards.
- Auburn held the ball for 10:59 in the first quarter and finished with 29:13 in all. Yowsers.
- Ben Tate on the loss: `` If I had a $1 million in my bank account I would of bet $1 million that we would come down here and win this game. You couldn’t convince me we weren’t going to come out and beat these boys."
- Tate finished with 67 yards on 20 carries.
- Tate on his game: ``I didn’t play great. I didn’t play good at all, probably the worst game I’ve played all year. And we lose the game and I finish my career 0-4 against Georgia."
- Gene Chizik on the game: ``I am very proud of our team. We just kept coming at them and coming back after jumping off to the quick start and Georgia came firing back. This one is a tough one to handle tonight."
- Chizik on finally getting an off week: ``Our guys have been going for 15 straight weeks, close to four months non-stop. We have to stay smart on how to give rest and still stay sharp for Alabama. We need to be smart about it and that is something that we'll look into tomorrow. They are going to take a few days off -- and we need that."
- Gus Malzahn on Chris Todd's first interception: ``He got hit."
- Malzahn on Todd's second interception: ``It was just a miscommunication."
- Malzahn on Onterio McCalebb, who gained 60 yards on 11 carries: ``He did a good job. He’s still not 100 percent. He provided a little spark to us."
Photo credit: Todd Van Emst/Auburn University
Questions? Comments? Post directly to the blog below or email me at jgtate@gannett.com.
posted by Jay G. Tate at
11:05 PM
97 Comments:
#1
AU loses again tonight.
Well goodnight everyone. What a sucky day.
If I had 1 million dollars, I wouldn't bet it on anything. I would invest it in something safe.
3 offensive points after the 1st quarter.
yeah, they were off the suck-o-meter after Q1.
I would agree with player Tate's assessment of his game. He has been amazing all year, everyone has bad games here and there. But he went down on first contact way too much tonight. Pretty good blocking actually at the first level I thought.
the trott holding call to negate a first down signaled the end.
Also, Tate continues run tentatively in short yardage situations, which makes me want to punch myself in the nose.
me too. tate did way to much sideways running tonight. gus didn't pick up ensiminger's notes by accident did he?
Oregon has how may uniform combinations?
Good grief.
But this loss is definitely not on Tate. There were way too many screw-ups to blame anyone.
Tate will bounce back and go for 168 yards against bama. Mark it dude.
i think he runs tentatively because he does not have confidence the hole will be there when the whole world knows he's getting the ball seven yards deep from the shotgun handoff.
There are no holes on 3 and 1. You make your own damn hole.
eleventy billion FSJ.
AU will heal and probably have a good game plan for UA.
Tonight's MSU game was a testament to how hard a team can fall when the excitement wears off.
If rah-rah could win a game, MSU would have blasted BAMA. Once that wore off, they were toast.
if this loss is on anyone it is: #1 gus, #2 thorpe, #3 OL play, #4 trott.
But the rah rah might not have worn off if Miss St had actually scored a TD in one of their many trips to the red zone.
i've seen him try to slam into the back of the OL or FB as 10 defensive players converge on the point of attack. he just doesn't have a chance many times because of the D knows what is coming. at least the D doesn't know what is coming on EVERY down this year.
Wellllllllll
Dexter McCluster is an absolute beast.
I'm here to take my medicine. I said Auburn would dominate the 4th qtr. They did not. I pretty much suck.
Nutt ought to be beaten for not using him enough earlier in the season.
Defense couldn't stop the run, and that always kills. One o lineman couldn't block the pass rusher, and that always kills. I think those were the two most prevalent trends that cost us the game.
But yeah, despite, that, if Neiko hadn't screwed up on those two plays, we win the game. But if we weren't so thoroughly dominated in a couple of other key positions, then those two plays wouldn't have mattered nearly as much.
That's why I can't really rank whose fault it is. Any one of about 5 different players could have had a good game and we would have won. Doh well.
it is still gonna be rough on D playing 4 true freshman lbs next year. and they WILL play. they will have to.
What do you suggest. A little I formation every once in a while.
What has happened to Kodi. He was killing it from the wildcat earlier in the year.
AU has to settle for an 8 win season and a mediocre bowl. Oh well.
chip chip - Tate is better overall, but the speed and fury with which Fannin hits the hole is light years better for short yardage than Tate.
what has sucked all season is the D getting the other team in 3rd and 20 and giving up and 50 yard play or the 1st on the qb draw. cox burned us again with it. that's four years in a row uga has used the qb draw to repeatedly torch AU. you would think a coach would pick on that in the game film study but oh well...
agreed michael. however, can fannin hold onto the ball running inside?
i didn't really agree with playing OM tonight. why get him banged up some more. he would have had a month to rest his ankle by the iron bowl and maybe back to 95%. he looked pretty spent late in the game. his leg was definitely a problem.
chip, chip doubtful. that has been a recurring problem.
I doubt he runs for 168; but, he is a very good back.
I look for a good iron bowl. It is never boring. Win or lose.
i did expect this offense to generate more turnovers than it has due to some risk taking in the passing game. however, fumbles, and lately, sacks have tended to be more of an issue than ints that were directly the fault of todd's decision making. i will say he's had a few ducks thrown into triple coverage knocked down by the dbs fighting over the ball.
That's Todd's secret. He puts so much air under the ball that the dbacks are fighting each other for it. Genius!
did deangelo benton take a snap at wr?
i was hoping last week was a signal he was ready to ease into the rotation.
he should start throwing them imaginary passes.
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and now with three scholly linebackers and 3 moderately effective dlinemen. they've got to be beat.
This game is my fault guys. I was in the grove after the ole miss game clowning around, by the time I got to a bar in oxford the score was 14-0 auburn. From that point on uga took control...I'm takin the heat for this loss
Well crap hag. I knew something happened right around the end of the first quarter. Should have guessed it was you.
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Tough loss tonight...I feel the pain for my peeps living in Georgia. Another walk of shame Monday...
To all:
Come on guys, we knew going into this season we were weak on defense and special teams.
Add to that our defensive injury situation!
Demond Washington was our shining star last night.
I wish we had won just as much as the next guy, but we knew we would have a rough year.
I'm damn proud of these young men and am pleased to be 7-4 at this point.
War Damn Eagle! It's great to be an Auburn Tiger!!
Good morning- I didn't sleep well last night. Kept waking up mad. I don't understand why we threw it at the end when we had used the run to get into good position.
I'm proud of these guys. We're much better than I thought we were going to be this year. That's what makes me so sad/ mad about last night. I want us to play our best and coach our best and I don't think we did last night.
I think the coaches have done an awesome body of work just getting these guys to be a team again- much less skill on the field.
I am pleased with 7-4 this year to this point. I am not pleased with who the 4 were too.
Thorpe, McCain had horrible games.
Freeman not returning due to concussion hurt the run defense. We played with 3 lb's but only two are really lb's. Evans is not ready yet.
I am not concerned about playinig freshman next year. There is big difference in playing freshman that are very taleneted versus those that need to be coached up.
Thinking ahead though it does look good for AU in 2 weeks. Not good at all.
MrsTHT and I were in Asheville, NC yesterday to look at a map, ironically, of Georgia. AU is 0 for 5 on days I do something related to maps, even if I get home in time for the game.
Our defensive line/LB are just not good. UA-T will run for 300 and score 34 or 38. Our offense is much better than last year, so we will manage to hang 10 on UA-T's great defense. I refuse to drive 1000 miles to watch that nightmare.
If you can't block, you can't tackle, and you get beat deep twice, you're not going to win.
The Trott hating is, for a lack of better word, stupid. He had a holding penalty. I wish Andrew McCain would have. It might have been somewhat more effective.
My Top Ten:
1. TCU
2. Florida
3. those people
4. Texas
5. Boise State
6. Cincinnati
7. Pittsburgh
8. Georgia Tech
9. Oregon
10. LSU
Well the sun came out today.
one of the headlines stated "the one that got away" that pretty much sums it up...
I have a feeing jordan hare will be filled with a sea of red this year as bryant denny was two years ago filled with orange and blue. Bama has a national title contender and our fans are realistic and not too excited, many of the season ticket holders around me are putting their tickets up for sale because they know bamas rabid fan base will pay $500 for a ticket on a flag pole.
I hate to hear that PDWT, but last night probably was a vicious kick to the gut or lower to a lot of people.
I know that over the past few years I've worked really hard on not letting games upset me. I had done a really good job...then last night happened.
That was a game a lot like many we saw last year (WVU, Vandy, Arkansas etc) where we jumped out to a good lead but had used up everything good we had early on and couldn't do anything the rest of the game.
Keys to the game
1. Neiko Thorpe = toast, he has a sophmore slump of the year.
2. Trott - yes, he caught one pass. But the penalty on our early drive killed our field position and his unsportsmanlike penalty on the int return put uga in our territory. He has been a dissapointment this year.
3. McCain and Ziemba- McCain, I expect, he wouldt start at most SEC schools, good kid though. Ziemba Mr. All-SEC, joined in and got killed on the edges. All of Todds pressure was from the outside. Plus I dont see how you are all-SEC when you have one false start a game.
4. LInebackers-3 linebackers and no subs you cant get that done in the SEC.
5. Ben Tate-he hurts more than others, he knows he didnt have his best game, he kept being taken down by shoe string tackles all night long. Too bad it was in this game.
6. Where did Ontarrio McCalleb go? We went to him quite a bit then he disappeared.
It tells me alot about where we are as a program to have losing streaks against Ark, Bama, and even longer ones to LSU and UGA.
UGA has very good athletes and finally didn't shoot themselves in the foot with penalties and turnovers. We needed to play the mistake-prone UGA that has been around all season.
The run game was there for UGA all night and they finally realized and exploited that. UGA made a couple of good defensive adjustments.
Our line play on both sides of the ball was disapointing and our offensive playcalling was suspect a few times in the second half. Of course, when you lose ....everything becomes suspect.
yes, i know, sunshine, we are going to finish 7-5, better than last year and this is what we expected. But lets be honest we "lost" that game last night against a bad and down UGA team. Not happy with it.
Does anyone else feel like Gus is still in a learning process?
What I don't get is we move the ball down to the 25 yard line at the end of the game pretty much using the rush, then once we get to the 25 it was one running play, a deep throw, a sack while looking deep and the 4th down throw to the endzone.
The running game was killing UGA late in the game.
However when you only score 3 offensive points after being up 14-0 not much good happens when you have a D that's paper thin on depth.
Our D is solid when we aren't going three and out. If we get two 3 and outs or a turnover in a row, our D isn't very good.
IV,
I do. I like his offense and the players seem to buy into his offense, but his playcalling is suspect at times.
"UGA has very good athletes and finally didn't shoot themselves in the foot with penalties and turnovers."
A lot of teams seem to put it all together offensively against us.
WERK, I agree but the good thing I think is that he is smart and will learn at a rapid pace. By the way, I hope your Dad is much better. I talked with our maker again on his behalf last night.
IV,
I appreciate it.
I can't decide whether this season has been good for recruiting or not. It may make a lot of prospects feel like they want to be a part of a team where they will get early playing time. But then again they may feel like they don't want to be a part of a team that looks like they may not be near ready to contend for conference and national championships.
WERK,
Keep the faith and put it in God's hands.
I am out for my Sunday morning hour walk. Got to go and spend some time in our great outdoors while I listen to some gospel music on my walkman.
Two 'Ziembas' in the 4th quarter; we lose. Nuff said.
I got the expected call from my Ga. Grad brother in law and he wasn't too rough on me. As I told him it was an interesting game but I could not undestand why our offense folded up the tent and went into hibernation. Play callimg? execution? worn out players? who knows?
War Eagle and hope for the best week after next.
be careful, IV, or the Rest Home will be putting out a Silver Alert ;-)
my hating on trott is not done. he has reached tray blackmon and leon hart bust status in my eyes. #73 is working on joining him with the constant 5 yard gifts to the other team. at least mckenzie didn't have two penalties. i'll trade his production for trott's last night any day of the week.
7-5 no longer is acceptable to me after seeing what the offense is capable of even with players that are not necessarily the "right fit" for the system. there are two games in the L column that even an average offense wins going away. the hot/cold stuff is what gus has to correct. it's like someone flushes the toilet and the hot water that is AU's O is gone and us fans are left with a cold shower.
i don't mind getting beat (arky and lsu). it happens. i do mind actively making and not making plays to lose the game when we are doing everything else to win or the other team is begging you to take it from them. uk and uga are bad teams period. i guess i will have to throw AU into that group as well.
i've never seen such a down year in the sec. i thought last year was bad and that ain't nuthin' compared to this year. uf and bammer are clearly the best two and they are not as good as last year to me. we are in that second group and it's not even close.
$aban should be fired immediately following the season if this is not his game plan for the iron bowl:
1. run ingram and richardson 60+ times.
2. do not throw a pass unless down by more than two touchdowns.
3. blitz every play on defense keeping one safety deep.
a portion of his $4 million is now rightfully mine! around $4,i think.
Have I mentioned how much I hate Georgia? Well Quality of life stinks this week for me. Oh well.
We had our shots and we blew our foot off last night in many ways. The thing that absolutely perplexes me is that Malzahn tries to exploit perceived weaknesses on other teams and completely deviates away from our strengths. We are a running team first with play action passing. We have to commit to and establish the run. I think we could have done that but for some reason Malzahn just wouldn't do it. It seems like if we got 6 or 7 yards on 1st down with a run, we would then throw it 2 times and punt. That was mind boggling.
Not to bash on a player, but Trott needs to sit right now. I watched him all night completely miss blocks that could have sprung big runs. He is a TE and he cannot even block a DB and if he did he held him. That was just disappointing. I don't know if you saw it on TV, but it was clear as day and night that he was completely mismatched all game long.
Defense had trouble early stopping the cut back run but was doing a decent job till Freeman went out of the game. Apparently Freeman is a big difference in this defense right now. They were completely different without him on the field. Thorpe.....sigh.
Here is the positives to take out of the game. On Paper, Georgia has a superior team compared to us, especially with depth. Georgia played an almost flawless game and were still close to either going to OT or losing. I felt like we lost the game more than they won it. This staff will bring players in and we will be better. I have no doubts about that.
Well, I still hate Georgia, but I also HATE BAMA more. The Bama came is not looking good at all. I'm dreading going to the game because my tickets are so darn close to the bama section. I don't think I can tolerate having to sit by those jerks other than FSJ :).
Anyways, War Eagle!!!!
Thanks to Kathy and friends for being fun gameday partners.
Thanks to Eddie (and Mrs. Eddie) for the awesome company and ride.
Thanks to ScottieB and that pimp daddy he was with for letting us crash the tailgate.
And, most of all, thank you Chizik for making us swallow mediocrity like it was chocolate cake.
can anyone name one player on AU's roster that other teams fear and gamplan for specifically?
maybe antiono coleman?
just double team him and problem solved.
everyone else are average players playing average.
I think they'll start planning to kick away from Demond on kickoffs, assuming he's back there.
The kick return was our only bright spot in the last 3 quarters and it almost was a disaster had they replayed that to see if he crossed the endzone with the ball.
I think he did, but without a goal line camera, they couldn't have changed the ruling on the field, whatever it was.
Well that game was another give away. Liekothers have said, I can take losing if I get beat, but I hate to give them away when they don't really want it either. (great quote from above)
11 games in and I can't get a feel for this team. WHY do you get away from what was woring in the 1st quarter. Not raggin' on gus, but when a team adjusts, you know your offense, you adjust. And QUIT running that wildcat crap. I'll say it, KB needs to be Aubie next year (someone posted a few weeks ago). I know he caught a pass. I think that still says a lot about the talent level that no one has beat him out of that spot on the team.
I don't know about Kodis route running skills, but I think he's got pretty good hands. When he takes the snap, you can pretty much count on the play going for minus 2 to plus 2 yards. Rarely, we get a big play out of it when he throws off his back foot to the TE.
What was the deal with Todd throwing into dbl coverage so many times last night? I haven't seen much of that at all from him before.
His arm looked weak at times, but good at others. The double coverage thing is surprising also. When he threw to Adams in the endzone (double covered) Fanin was streaking down the sideline 10 yards ahead of his defender.
The last INT, Adams turned out instead of in. He was the closestto the ball and that @ 10-15 yards.
As for Trott and McCain they were beat all night long. I guess they had a bender the night before the game. If you have ever seen there facebook pics you will understand what I am talking about.
Not sure about the last two plays called for AU. You know it is 4 down territory, why not run a draw on 3rd down (the wrap around hand off) and gain a little to give you abetter shot on 4th, not need to try and get it all at one time.
But to call a timeout to run that hail mary pass was not bright. Don't understand it, but getitng accustomed to it.
Was it 1991 and 1992 the last time we lost to both UGA and Alabama in back to back years?
Good afternoon hotties.
Last night everyone seemed pretty resilient. Thinking maybe with a week's rest, the next game might be a battle.
What do you think? Yea or nay!
To me the iron bowl is always a classic matchup. Win or lose and Bama has lost plenty, I enjoy the whole year and buildup for the game.
Can't get here soon enough.
Chris "Jekyll and Hyde" Todd perplexes me. He looks great one minute and horrible the three after that. He ignores wide open receivers and throws into double coverage. He fixates on Darvin Adams no matter what the coverage. He zips. He noodles. He is so frustrating.
With that said, if Todd weren't our starting QB, we would not have won seven games. Kodi could not have done it.
We did not run out of gas last night due to a long season. The coaches did a good job getting the player's legs back after the LSU game. Our defensive perfoprmance was worsened due to lack of defensive depth and backup talent at times.
The offensive performance? A conundrum. 3-6 good plays/decisions followed by 3-4 drive killers ...and many different folks associated with the O contributed to the problems at one point or another. How much of those problems were due to the UGA D playing great and how much was shooting ourselves? ...maybe rewatching the game later tonight will provide some insight.
I kept saying last night that I hate to lose that way. I thought I meant so closely, but after reading all of your insightful comments, it's the fact that we lost b/c of ourselves- not the other team. Those first two possessions showed we could handily win that game with proper adjustments. It seemed like we did a better job of adjusting during the beginning of the year than we are doing now. Do you think that's because the coaches are tired too or because, due to injuries, we have less people we can use to readjust?
It's natural for Todd to look for Adams ...because he can count on Adams to adjust to the ball flight or if necessary to come back for the ball.
In the 4th qtr, Todd under-threw a mid-deep down the middle route to Carr. Carr kept running, rather than slow down-come back- and jump for the ball. Luckily UGA dropped the int. Don't know if Carr has the abilities to adjust or not, but Adams and sometimes Zachary do have that ability.
Clearly, this reliance/fixation on Adams hurts when you see Todd throw to a double-covered Adams and Fannin is open by 10 yards in the same end-zone.
UGA is a talented team that has beaten themselves more than any team I know of in CFB this season. UGA played one of their best games of the year and we almost won anyway. We've been sloppy all year and have gotten away with it more than you would expect because we can score a lot of points.
We played similar to how we have all season. Did UGA stop their sloppy play by the end of the 1st qtr because of AU? ...or because of themselves?
Hoop, Here are my reasons for loss.
1. O line couldn't pass protect, run block with consistency.
2. Thorpe. He just got burned. Guy ran right past him twice.
3. UGA found they could run, and did.
4. Todd's interceptions were devastating.
regarding Malzahn and play calling. Here is what I don't understand. We get in favorable 2nd and 3 or 2nd and four, he goes for the big play downfield. It's ok in the sec to have a sustained drive. Now we are in 3rd and 4 and the UGA d is teeing off on our o line.
7-4 is a game better than what I thought we would be. bama will beat us this year worse than last.. we have no answer for Ingram and their running game. their d line better than uga's and linebackers better to. todd holds the ball too long and will get killed. If Malzahn doesn't come up with some quick passes, slants, etc. it will be a long night.
Still, this is what I expected,
Today's Headline:
AU's loss incriminated in Blog death.
Sponge,
Idiotic for trying to throw deep with a QB that can't do it.
I think everyone is still a little hungover from last nights events THT - I know I am - still in a state of disbelief.
New thread UPZ.
CTodd can't throw deep like the Arky Qb, but he is capable in the right situations. We have to throw deep in order to keep the D backed up and out of the box. Curran for UGA was all over the field because we didn't get to him and block him.
I wonder if the WR ran the correct route in the "miscommunication" interception .....the WR was wide open near the sideline and the safety was sitting deep in the middle waiting for the ball.
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