The Wall Street Journal asks the musical question which college football rivalry is the dirtiest of them all…
But which college-football rivalry is the dirtiest? To find out, the Count tallied how many conduct and roughness penalties have been assessed in the last five meetings of 40 rivalries. Unsportsmanlike conduct, late hits and other roughness calls counted (including offsetting ones); penalties that aren’t generally malicious did not, like roughing the kicker…
and finds that it’s the South’s Oldest Rivalry.
… The meanest matchup by this measure: Auburn-Georgia. The Deep South’s oldest rivalry, which began in 1892, has averaged 5.4 behavior-related penalties per game the past five years. Last year’s game (an Auburn comeback victory) ended with punches being thrown and two Auburn players getting ejected.
Oh, yeah, that.
(h/t Brian Cook)
Get The Picture 
A poster on EDSBS.com noted that between Auburn’s two rivalries, the AU-UGA game seems to be more friendly among the fans and rougher on the field, whereas the Iron Bowl seems to be the opposite. After last year’s game, it will be interesting to see if that trend continues. I know there was a lot of angst in our fan base about Fairley, Cam, Trooper, etc. and a lot of reverse hurt feelings on the other side. I wonder if it will still have that friendly feeling when we get back together.
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Yeah, I used to, well….not “like” Aubrun, but I really didn’t hate them.
Fairley, almost by himself, threw that out the window.
I might have been able to overlook him, too, as just a bad apple, but the way the Auburn fans celebrated him and Cam, then closed ranks with their “Auburn Family – All In” nonsense, their coaches’ practice of oversigning, and then the Family shooting the bird with BOTH hands at the NCAA (and seemingly getting away with it) has sickened me to no end.
Armageddon can’t come soon enough for that program.
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I don’t care too much for Auburn
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Get out of my head, Jeff. It’s creepy. Plus, You might not like what you find.
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Heavens No, I hope not! All the nauseating tripe about the “Auburn Family” has just piled on top of their last year’s win courtesy of their rented QB (who should be ineligible for this year’s NFL Rookie of the year since it is his second year as a professional) and their dirtbag Fairley. I still can’t believe it but I was actually pulling for the Gators to beat them last weekend.
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I hope not. I would like to see an Auburn player “slow to get up” about once every five minutes. And each time, I want our player to give a four-second glare to Trooper Taylor before going back to the huddle.
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I had forgotten about that game. 🙂
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I know this is sarcasm, but allow me to remind you:
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Wait, two Auburn players got ejected? But that can’t be! The Auburn message boards said Georgia players were the ones throwing punches and chop-blocking and going up into the stands and raping people and stealing their wallets. Clearly the WSJ has been grossly misinformed!
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Raping people? Did Obama’s job’s bill not get passed? I guess Biden was right!
/new tone
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Door gunners are always right
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It was consentual sex. And they give all football players money, no matter what team they play for.
And if you think last year’s rivalry game was something, you gotta be at the next one. BETWEEN THE HEDGES!
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Yep….ejected. They should have ejected and fined Soopa doopa Troopa Taylor for unsportsmanlike conduct too. He was swinging the towl chest bumping and egging it on. I would gladly pay for a play to run in his direction and over him …….I hope the Bulldogs cock punch the Aubies this year.
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I witnessed the most disgraceful moment as a GA football fan and student back in ’02 at a AU/UGA home game. We were tailgating around south campus when a father and his 5 year old son were walking down the street wearing Auburn apparel minding their own business. Just father/son going to the game. Out if nowhere a GA fan threw two cups of keg beer right at their face and started yelling obscenities with his buddies. Some other GA fans (including myself) went over gave them some paper towels and apologized for the other behavior.
On one hand, I love a hostile home environment inside the stadium, but some rivalries just make a few fans go overboard. Auburn-GA one example
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Georgia was AT Auburn in 2002. Who could forget. Not really caring to correct you but saw a nice opportunity to post this video…
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Hey, who does Johnson hand the ball to and hug on the sideline at the end of that clip? Nice moment. Can’t tell who it is.
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Not sure. My guess would be John Eason?
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I’ve heard before that it was in fact the wide receivers coach but I can’t recall where or who told me that.
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Over corrected myself on the year. So it was ’01 then
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I saw it happen too. What you missed was that kid yelling that UGA can “SMD” over and over again, while looking leeringly at some 4-year olds in cheerleader outfits. Kid needed to learn his place and I hope he did. Dad was a punk too.
I hate Auburn (ht Kyle).
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and now we know the REST of the story.
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…and knowing is half the battle.
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S you are saying that the game wa in Georgia that year? And the poor out of town Aubies were treated badly? Sounds to me like some Auburn re-visionist history going on here.
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Kinda makes ya proud doesn’t it. Ain’t no pointy headed yankees gonna get down & dirtier than we can.
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Senator,
Were those Auburn players suspended for the next game, or any part of it? I can’t remember.
If so, that’s probably what will happen to our boys. Oh yeah, and Fire Mark Richt!!!!1!
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Nevermind, I just scrolled down the main page and read the punishment news.
Fuck. This is all Mark Richt’s fault. Mark Richt OBVIOUSLY controls Kwame’s movements like in REAL STEEL and was TRYING to DELIBERATLEY SCREWW us over for Florday! FIRE MARK RICHT!!!!!1!!!!!!!!! Everyone ith a BRAIN knows it.
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Lol..real steel. Like the nickname haha. Kwame “Real Steel” Geathers
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I want to see Big John or Kwame knee shoot Trotter…then parade around the field the wrestling belt strap like Fairley did to us last year. See how Auburn fans like that.
Well, maybe not
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I would like to see them actually shoot him. With a gun.
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Yes they were.
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Oh, ok, so it’s NOT Vandy vs UGA…
Again, we are on the loosin’ end of this thing…b/c any chance of “redemption” we may have will be wiped out by the refs being super-tweaked at any chippy-ness that could take place b/t UGA and the barn this year. I mean don’t get me wrong, I want to beat them – bad – fair and square say like without trying to purposely injure their qb. But they started this crap last year and I can see Penn Wagers sitting at home right now deciding which critical UGA player should get tossed first at the first sign of “unpleasantness”.
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WSJ calls UGA dirty, I just call them winners. AU on the other hand, whiners.
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I have hated Auburn since getting a fire hose turned on me in ’86. Auburn can burn in Hell.
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From the mouth of a UGA fan:
http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=%2F&gl=US#/watch?v=lbB_HVcXpPk
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Sorry:
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I was there and I didn’t want AU to hose you. I wanted them to machine gun you foul-mouthed, in bred, illegitimate children….My wifes’ first AU-ga game.
and she was shocked that uga fans talked that way around women and kids. Me…I had seen it before
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And you continue to get disturbed 25 yrs later? I recommend for any stadium sport that children have earplugs. If your wife hadn’t heard bad words, I have to ask an Alabama question. Had she reached puberty yet?
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One should never pass up an opportunity to share bon mots re: Auburn. I actually think Auburn fans behave better now than they did back in the day, tho that may just be me encountering a better breed as I grow older. But last year’s game reminded me of plenty of lousy behavior by Auburn players over the years, fights, late hits, ungracious comments, etc. After we beat them in ’80, AU players didn’t congratulate their opponents; in fact, I remember a comment along the lines of “if they’re number 1, then we should be in the top 10, too. They’re not that good” and so on. Not that our guys were always blameless. I’m pretty sure it was an AU game in the 70’s in which Erk busted his noggin into some Junkyarders’ helmets as an apparent disciplinary measure (as I recall, a player staggered but Erk did not–just what the Hell was his head made of?).
But, really, my version of heaven would include not just a Georgia victory every Saturday in beautiful October Athens, but a Jordan-Hare somewhere overgrown with endless poison ivy and berry less briars, inside which legions of cheatin’, whinin’, dumber’n’dirt Tigger/War Crows are helplessly spinning their flat-tired tractors in descending circles into an oozy bog infested with rattlers, rats and yippy bug eyed Chihuahuas.
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Slaw Dawg, I think your last paragraph was a vision of Clemson visiting Tech’s Grant Field, or something out of a college football version of Paradise Lost. Better to reign in the ACC than to serve in the SEC.
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I’ve just seen a literary justification for FSU’s refusal to jump ship. Who knew?
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Dirtiest? Hatred runs deep! On field and off field. Old school alum. Tech. Hands down.
Had some Tech fan bother my truck one time.
Some great wins and tough losses to Auburn. Have many Auburn friends. Never feel anything bad for Auburn.
Now Vandy sits in the same outhouse with Tech.
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“Now Vandy sits in the same outhouse with Tech.”
Exactly the same way I felt after the win on Saturday. A thorough beat-down is in order for that team when they visit Athens next year.
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Second thought. Considered canceling my WSJ subscription. Log back in and send that bum my thoughts on his article. Must be an Ivy League grad.
What a week for piling on against us by the media.
UGA alum and very proud of it. Not the only member of my family who is a grad. A great university with great programs. Would pick UGA over a Vandy or Auburn any day of the week.
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That was a memorable, clean, legal, good stick. The Auburn DB called Reggie in the hospital to check on him. Nothing wrong with that play.
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Sorry HS, not memorable, clean, legal or a good stick. Helmet to helmet. Maybe no call then but gets called as a PF every time now.
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And it was spearing. Courson (UGA Medico) got the NCAA to pass a no-spearing, leading with the helmet rule as a resultant of that play.
And I remember it plainly for the hush that came over the stadium and both school’s players kneeling in small groups and holding hands while praying.
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Thomas Davis laid out a few with the same technique. That was a clean, legal hit in 2004.
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You said all D N Nation! No call, and you could hear the hit, too.
Now if we could the University powers to be to bundle some of this up and present it to the SEC and those AJC boys.
Can not wait to hear what the Adams, McGarity, and Richt have to say. Maybe something along these lines. “you guys play dirty, and we ain’t going to take this anymore”, or “go to freaking hell”.
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Any chance of an SEC East invite to North Carolina? In the top ten twice!
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I knew UNC-Duke basketball games often drew blood, but I didn’t realize it extended to football as well.
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Ask any Dawg fan the most hated rival and you get a different answer. I hate the Gators, AU and GT, not so much. I will say that in my younger days I never went to a UGA AU game without seeing a fistfight among fans. My personal beef is with UF. Once some “fans” threw bottles at our bus when we were leaving for St. Simons. I had a dust up with some UT guys once but some of their own fans broke everything up and no damage to either party. I was young and stupid and somewhat drunk so some of the blame is mine. You don’t have to react to every insult. Last incident was three years ago in Jaxville. My brothers and I were in a bar after the game and went to the men’s room. Let me say that at six feet and 225 lbs I am the runt of the litter. When brother number 1 came out of a stall[he stands six three and weighs about 250] a thirty something UF fan waiting in lie says,”oh great, another son of a bitch from Ga.” My brother chased the guy into the stall and was pounding on the door yelling something like come out and I’ll beat your sorry Florida ass! Brother number two and I had his back and the guy didn’t come out of the stall so it ended there. I should add that my eldest brother does not take “son of a bitch”.
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Pretty silly way top determine the bittereness of a rivalry, but what do northerners know about CFB? And the WSJ as a source of info for football? So the WSJ thinks letting what SEC officials call is the best way to measure this……right. This SEC seems as puzzling to them as the other SEC, the one they should actually understand.
Truth is, it only takes one idiot, in any fanbase to convince you they are the worst you have ever seen. It always seemes to sink to the lowest level. Last week’s Vandy game is an example of how that can even play out on the field, not just in the parking lot. A Vandy guy cheap-shotted a UGA defenseless player on a kickoff return, but Shawn Williams got the penalty for retaliating. Then the Vandy center attempts to deliberately take Kwame’s legs out, and Kwame gets penalize for retaliating. At least in that case, the Vandy player did get called for his thuggery. Lucky for him it was only Kwame that went after him. Then Franklin damn near incites a riot after the game as he appears wounded that his chop blocking techniques didn’t prevail. Proves again, only takes one idiot
All rivalries have hotheads, and punks. The temperature for Bama/AU seems the hottest to me on a macro basis, but any rivalry can stir the passions. Just depends on who you encounter…and where.
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Franklin obviously succeeded is his calculated way have a player mercenary bait a UGA player to a flagrant foul, and subsequently persuaded Richt and the rest of the Media that it is all the UGA’s dirty players with no doubt. I am sure if Grantham ignored him he would have tried to bait another UGA staff.
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I have not doubt Franklin can go to even try to bait and step on the tail of Russ if needed. LOL
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Now that would be tough to do ….. Russ doesn’t have much of a tail.
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One more reason to hate the WSJ. Wrong about their predictions on the economy; slanted against UGA.
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And not aware of how many bad memories they stirred up.
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