This has certainly been a lost season for the Auburn Tigers.
It started with the high expectations that come with any new football season but it quickly went south for Gene Chizik’s team. Auburn was competitive in a seven-point loss to Clemson in the Kickoff Classic, but then Mississippi State blasted Auburn and the season started its slide.
An overtime win over Louisiana-Monroe did little to reverse the Tigers’ fortune. Five consecutive losses followed, including an embarrassing 42-point loss to Texas A&M, the low point not only of this season but probably the lowest in several decades for Auburn football.
Nothing can be done to turn this into a winning season and allow the Tigers to slip into a low-level bowl game, butAuburncan salvage some of the hurt of this season. There are still two big goals — reachable goals — out there for the Tigers.
This Saturday, Auburn can stop long-time rival Georgia from clinching the SEC East championship, and then on November 24 the Tigers have an opportunity to upset Alabama, another bitter rival and currently the No. 1 team in the nation.
It won’t totally salvage this season but it will certainly make the offseason a little more palatable. Chizik knows what it is like to be on the doorstep of a championship and how hard other teams try to make sure you don’t get it against them.
“We have been on the other side of that, and there’s a lot of motivation. No question about it. They’re playing for the ability to clinch the division and play in the SEC Championship game,” said Chizik. “When you play in rivalry games like this that have been going on this long, and there’s so much just involved with the game regardless of where each team is at and where they’re at in their season, it just makes for a great game.
“Our guys are going to be excited just because it’sGeorgia,” he added. “A lot of our players are from the state ofGeorgiaand certainly close by if they’re not from the state.Georgiarecruits a lot of the same guys, and these guys are playing high school football together or against each other. I think the history of the game, proximity and geographically how close we are and with our guys just enjoying the chance to play in a rivalry game like this 6 p.m. ESPN game, I think all those things together, we’re going to be very excited to play Saturday.
“Does his team want to be the spoiler? I think that’s kind of what anybody in that situation realizes, whether you say it or it’s in the back of your head, that you have an opportunity to play in a great game and if you play well and if you do end up winning the game, that’s the result, but that’s not what we’re feeding on.
“We’re feeding on the opportunity to have another great SEC game and have the opportunity to play on national TV against a great football team and have an opportunity to go out there and compete. That’s more of what we’re focused on — and trying to build on what we did last week as well,” Chizik said.
Auburn finally got a lift by breaking a five-game losing streak last week with a 42-7 win overNew MexicoState. The win over the Aggies featured freshman Jonathan Wallace, who made his first start at quarterback, and a revitalized ground game with Tre Mason and Onterio McCalebb both topping the century mark in rushing. It also gave the Tigers a breath of fresh air.
“As I’ve said before, there’s only one remedy to what was week after week occurring there for a while, and that is a win. It was great to see our guys in the locker room very excited about getting a win and what that feels like again. It had been a while,” said Chizik on Wednesday. “Practice Sunday, I thought it was very energetic. We have a lot of guys up and down the hallways this week watching film on their own, excited about playing in a game like this as well. I think it’s carrying over. I know it did yesterday, and my expectation is that it’ll carry over to today’s practice.”
Auburn and Georgia have met 115 times previously in the South’s Oldest Rivalry. The series have been primarily even with Auburn winning 54 games and Georgia winning 53. There have also been eight ties. (Remember when games used to end in ties?) Georgia leads the series in scoring, 1,854 to 1,779 points.
Georgia coach Mark Richt knows that regardless of the two teams’ records going into the game, it is still going to be a battle if the Bulldogs are going to accomplish their goal of playing in the SEC Championship Game. There is no doubt that Georgia, at 8-1, has had a championship-level season. An Auburn upset would throw a serious monkey wrench into the Bulldogs’ championship scenario.
“Have we reached our full potential as a team yet? I don’t know,” Richt said. “I think at times we’ve seen the best of what we can do offensively and defensively and maybe even in kicking. But have we done it all on the same day? Not very often, and that’s still a goal for us to try to get to a point where everybody can play their best week in and week out.
“Everybody knows football to a certain degree, but not everybody understands exactly what it takes to put a team together and to put a game plan together and try to get players in the right frame of mind to play every single week, and even as players to try to do it themselves. We’re all human and there are ups and downs. There are probably more variables in the college game than in the pro game because we are dealing with young people.”