AUBURN, Ala. — Georgia football’s road show this season is a topsy-turvy ride for its fans that may make them want to reach for some Pepto-Bismol.
The No. 9 Bulldogs produced another come-from-behind victory after a ragged start.
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This one was a 20-10 win over Auburn on Saturday Oct. 11. The Bulldogs channeled the 44-41 overtime win in Tennessee on Sept. 13.
Believe it or not, Georgia would prefer not to have to win this way.
“I mean, that’s not our intentions,” wide receiver Colbie Young said. “We want to start as fast as possible, but we just show resiliency every time.”
The Bulldogs fell behind 21-7 in Knoxville and were down 10-0 in Jordan-Hare Stadium and staring at 17-0 before CJ Allen, with help from his friend Raylen Wilson, forced a fumble at the goal-line on a Jackson Arnold run.
The Bulldogs defense flipped a switch and Georgia scored the final 20 points of the game including a field goal near the end of the opening half.
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Make sense of this.
Georgia had 78 total yards in the first half and 218 in the second.
The Bulldogs defense gave up 237 yards in the first half including 130 rushing but allowed just 40 total yards and 10 rushing in the second.
“It’s crazy how good we can play at times and how poorly we can play at times,” coach Kirby Smart said.
He was talking about the defense, but the same can apply to the offense.
Georgia punted the first three times it had the ball in the game, but then didn’t punt again.
“The first half it went about as bad as it could have gone,” said quarterback Gunner Stockton who passed for 212 yards and completed 23 of 36 and scored on a 10-yard touchdown run late. “In the second half, we just found a way to win.”
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Georgia had just 291 yards of total offense, but that was more than it had in three wins last year—the two against Texas and at Kentucky.
That season ended with Georgia in the playoff.
Sometime during the second half Saturday night., ABC flashed a graphic that stated that Georgia’s chance to reach the playoff was 72 percent with a win and 38 percent with a loss against Auburn, according to ESPN’s playoff predictor.
“I thought at halftime, the coaching staff did a great job allowing the kids to have some confidence,” Smart said. “The drive before the half kept us alive.”
Linebacker Raylen Wilson was asked if there was anything thrown or expletives uttered at halftime.
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“Man, you could say that,” he said with a laugh. “Everybody knows what we’re capable of. We’ve just got to show then what we’re capable of.”
The Bulldogs helped their cause by possessing the ball for 22:07 of the 30-minute second half..
“I’m as proud of this team as I am probably any team ever from the performance,” Smart said.
Both teams and their fans had reasons to be upset with the officials.
Auburn had a whopping 11 penalties for 103 yards and Georgia had 6 for 60.
Tigers coach Hugh Freeze said he thought Arnold scored on his quarterback run that was ruled a fumble and Georgia recovery.
Smart in the second half appeared to call a timeout but then officials ruled he didn’t.
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“They were clapping,” Smart said of Auburn trying to cause a false start penalty. “So I ran over to him and said they’re clapping. They’re clapping. And he thought I called timeout.”
Smart at first chalked up the defense’s second half improvement to striking blockers and playing blocker better.
“At the end of the day, if you win first down, it gave us a chance to win third down,” he said. “You’ve got to get them in third and long. We were able to do that better in the second half.”
Freeze said Georgia made adjustments which helped them stop the zone runs.
“Probably should have stayed with more perimeter option runs with Jackson,” he said.
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Smart said with an open date before Georgia, Auburn “hit us on some things that, honestly, we didn’t rep. We had to rep them and we had to get it fixed. We got it fixed.”
Georgia gets unbeaten Ole Miss Saturday at 3:30 p.m. in Athens after winning once again when it wasn’t at its best once again on the road.
“It just shows,” center Drew Bobo said, “we won’t back down from a challenge.”
This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: How Georgia keeps winning on road when it has to climb out of hole
