It’s a dirty little secret that writing about a loss, in sports or in life, is usually easy.

Not enjoyable, mind you, but not difficult. When there are discrete events that you can point out and concentrate on, when you know the subject well, in most cases your biggest problem isn’t what to write, it’s what to leave out.

Auburn’s epic egg-laying in the Tigers’ first early-season tilt with Georgia was ... not one of those times.

Sure, I could dig into the drive charts and individual stats and harp on points where the game broke down in particularly egregious fashion, but what’s the point?

If you’re reading this, you almost certainly saw the carnage yourself. Recapping getting blown off both sides of the line, conceding one big play after another to a third-team converted walk-on quarterback, the inability to get anything going on offense. And so on.

It was bad. I can’t think of a single phase of the game in which Auburn’s performance exceeded adequate and plays even at that minimal level were rare.

I’m having trouble thinking of a more dispiriting effort.

Auburn went into this rescheduled rivalry game seemingly with the odds stacked in their favor. Georgia was down to a former walk-on at quarterback and had allowed lowly Arkansas a third-quarter lead in the opener. The pandemic had emptied the home stands in Athens as effectively as an Auburn blowout in the 1980s or 90s.

Not for the first time of late, a Georgia game looked like less of a gauntlet than a prime opportunity.

Instead it was more of the dreary same.

The Tigers were comprehensively trounced, eking out a pitiful pair of second-half field goals while giving up yardage and points by the bushel. What once looked like a promising season suddenly was reset to “Oh no, not again.”

This is what going backward looks like.

Auburn lost games it should have won a year ago, but was never run out of a stadium. Even after going down 21-0 to Georgia in 2019, the Tigers were able to make a reasonable (though failed) run at a comeback.

Not this time. This was an all-too-familiar shellacking, made worse by inept play and fruitless coaching at pretty much every juncture. I can think of a few times when Auburn looked this bad in an early game and managed to produce a good season. Not many, though.

It’s hard to imagine 2020 resembling 1983, when the Tigers were blown out by Texas in the second game yet recovered to finish without another loss.

It’s very easy to imagine another 2003, when bad early losses were an uncomplicated sign that the team was no better than mediocre.

You won’t find a silver lining in the Georgia game films. If there is anything positive to point to at this grim moment, it’s that Auburn will be playing several games in a row against teams that also looked no better than average (if that) in their own rights over the last couple of weeks.

That doesn’t mean any of them are sure things — far from it. Still, the middle of this season appears to present an opportunity to improve against middling competition, but nothing should be taken for granted right now.

That’s it. That’s all I can take away from yet another comprehensive debacle at the hands of Auburn’s second rival.

Other than thinking, hardly for the first time, that this can’t happen again without consequences.