AUBURN | For No. 18 Auburn to have a chance to knock off No. 2 Georgia, it needed to play a relatively clean game and take advantage of every opportunity.
That didn’t happen for the Tigers and it was the Bulldogs that pulled away for a 34-10 win in Jordan-Hare Stadium.
“We have to finish drives. That’s the most frustrating thing right now,” said Auburn coach Bryan Harsin. “We can drive the field and that really doesn’t matter if you can’t put points on the board. I know we can move the ball. I know that. Can we score touchdowns? Because that gets pretty old when you’re not doing that.”
Auburn was doomed by a myriad of missed chances in the first half. The offense drove inside the Georgia 10-yard line twice and came away with just three points. The receivers had several dropped passes included one that bounced off the hands of Shaun Shivers for an interception that UGA converted into three points.
There were also some costly penalties including a targeting that caused Smoke Monday to be ejected on the first play of the second quarter. UGA scored on the next play to take a 10-3 lead.
“If we made just a few more plays — maybe two or three more plays go in our favor — we're capable of hanging in there with that Georgia team and being pretty much in the game with them and being able to share that field with us,” said quarterback Bo Nix.
“Just from an offensive standpoint, we just have to execute better. There's little small subtle areas that have to improve that'll make those big improvements that people kind of see on the outside.”
The Tigers put together a 17-play drive to open the game but couldn’t advance after getting a first down on the UGA 9-yard line. Nix’s first down pass was incomplete and he was flagged for intentional grounding on 2nd down. He completed a third-down pass to Shaun Shivers for eight yard but Auburn was forced to settle for a 24-yard field goal by Anders Carlson and a 3-0 lead.
Trailing 17-3 late in the first half, AU drove down to the UGA 7-yard line. Nix’s first three passes fell incomplete including one through the receivers hands. AU sent the field goal team out on 4th down but an offsides penalty moved the ball to the 3-yard line and Harsin sent the offense back on the field.
Nix lofted a pass to Ze’Vian Caper in the end zone but it was broken up by a UGA defensive back with Caper and Nix both calling for an interference penalty.
Overall, AU scored 10 points on three red zone opportunities after Tank Bigsby scored on a 6-yard run in the third quarter. UGA was 5 of 5 in the red zone with 27 points.
“You’ve got to score touchdowns, period, when you get in the red zone, and we haven’t done that well enough,” said Harsin. “So that continues to be a work in progress but that’s got to change. We need to have seven points when we come out of that red zone.
“We will continue to make that a focus and we will do a better job of not the same thing. Not going to continue doing the same thing. We’ll find a better way to put that ball in the end zone so we do walk away with touchdowns. That begins, again, on Sunday. We’ll work on that through the week and then we go play on Saturday against Arkansas.”
Kickoff at Razorback Stadium is scheduled for 11 a.m. CT on CBS or ESPN.
