Bulldogs have much at stake at Auburn

Tech needs strong finish to bolster bowl prospects

A rivalry game with a history brimming with vignettes that you would expect from the Deep South’s oldest such competition takes on a different meaning in some years — especially one in which so much is at stake, as it is for Georgia this weekend.

The first question when you evaluate the current Auburn Tigers, without question the best team Georgia will have played (Notre Dame does not line-up as many SEC talentworthy players as Auburn and doesn’t have as much overall team speed), is how this team has managed to lose two games.

With a quarterback with superior abilities, Tiger partisans see Georgia as vulnerable on pass defense and will fill the box when the Tiger defense takes the field since they have concluded that Jake Fromm will have difficulty winning the game if he has to throw. That would be true in any matchup with a team which is a run-first advocate. Georgia, to paraphrase Darrell Royal of Texas years ago, will “dance with what brung them.”

This is a game where Georgia brings much to the table. Comparisons may or may not LORAN SMITH GUEST COLUMNIST

mean anything. You can’t explain Ohio State’s collapse last weekend, and Georgia aficionados are now aware that no means of determining a national championship can be totally fair. All Notre Dame has to do is win out and the Irish are in the playoffs. Losing late in the season, depending on the opponent, is not positive for gaining a playoff spot. Faith in the Dawgs nonetheless remains.

Members of the playoff committee have sealed lips, but there are enough vibes out there to confirm that Georgia’s balance and strength of schedule has influenced the voters’ thinking. You liken the Bulldogs’ situation to a race driver. You lead the Daytona 500 for 197 laps and then some malfunction, like a flat tire or a wreck on one of the last three laps, causes you to lose the race. But who would not like to be in the Bulldogs’ shoes today?

The team with the best record in the country the last decade has been Alabama, and they often lose a game a year. The trick is losing the “right” game, which usually means losing one early which enables you to overcome a loss and rebound into the playoff picture.

Kirby is building his program for the long haul. Back-toback-to-back-to-back recruiting classes that are among the very top ranked classes in the country — never having an off year. With the recruiting base he has in Georgia, he realizes that that objective can be achieved.

He is the first to offer a tip of the hat to high school coaches, and not just in Georgia. Players come to campus with a three-year plan; compete with definitive playing time for three years and then move on to the NFL. If you are going to compete for championships, you must replace cogent talent with cogent talent.

I have long been intrigued by the philosophy of Tennessee’s Robert Neyland, who espoused the view that could only get your team up for a peak performance more than once, perhaps, twice a season. The General has the best winning percentage in the history of the SEC with 82 percent. He played as soft a schedule as possible and held the view that you never played two tough games back-toback. Coaches can’t manipulate scheduling today as Neyland could. The Saban model at Alabama has been to out-recruit everybody. Knowing your team is likely to experience an off day, he can beat you on those days because he has deeper talent.

We all should be reminded that with all due respect to Auburn’s competency, Kirby Smart is not taking a team with abundant shortcomings across the Chattahoochee this weekend. He has prepared his team with knowledge of Auburn’s history and tradition from having coached against Auburn for nine years while at Alabama. His record versus the Tigers is 6-3 during that time.

From the beginning he has coached this team to respect the competition, play hard and keep your mouth shut. This team won’t panic, but it knows to win against a team as good as Auburn, which is playing at home where crowd noise reaches decibels as high as any venue in the Southeastern Conference, will require two basic things: play a peak game and win the turnover battle.

In a quirk that is about as odd as any in modern day football, both Georgia and Auburn have a better record on the road than at home since the game went home and home in 1959 — leaving Columbus and old Memorial stadium on Veteran’s Parkway. (Auburn has a 18-14 record in Athens and Georgia’s record at Auburn is 16-11-2).

Memorial Stadium officially seated about 15,000 but it seemed as though that twice as many found their way into the stadium which prompted the late Shug Jordan, Auburn’s long time coach, to remark that if you got up to go to the bathroom, you lost your seat.

ATLANTA — A frustrating season is starting to wear on Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson.

Johnson was clearly miffed Tuesday as he kept going over all the close losses that have left the Yellow Jackets (4-4, 3-3 Atlantic Coast Conference) scrambling for bowl eligibility.

With Saturday’s game against No. 17 Virginia Tech, the regular-season finale against No. 2 Georgia and a road trip to Duke in between, it’s still uncertain whether the Yellow Jackets will qualify for the postseason — even if they get a waiver from the NCAA with a losing record.

“I think we’ll be eligible. We’ve got a high APR,” Johnson said, referring to the Academic Progress Rate that is used to determine which five-win teams fill out the bowl field if there aren’t enough with at least a .500 record. “But let’s try not to have the scenario if we can help it.”

Georgia Tech really shouldn’t be in this predicament.

Three of its losses have been by a total of six points.

“We’re to the point where we need to be accountable,” Johnson said, his voice growing increasingly irritated. “I’m ultimately accountable, but it flows downfield with responsibility, with assignments, with schemes, whatever. We’re all accountable . ... It all comes back to me. I’ve got that. But everybody has to do their part.”

In the season opener, the Yellow Jackets squandered a two-touchdown lead in the fourth quarter to Tennessee, missing an easy field goal on the final play of regulation and losing 42-41 in double overtime when the Volunteers stuffed a two-point conversion on the final play.

There was another excruciating loss at Miami, which drove 85 yards in the closing minutes — converting on fourthand-long by hauling in a tipped pass — to kick a short field goal with 4 seconds remaining for a 25-24 victory.