Matt Hinton makes an interesting point.
No self-respecting SEC fan needs an excuse to tune into Auburn-Georgia, no matter how good the teams happen to be in a given year. But these are fat times for the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry. Saturday’s edition will be the 5th consecutive in which one or both teams (in this case Georgia) comes in with legitimate Playoff aspirations, and the 3rd in as many years in which both teams are ranked in the top 15 in the AP poll. Before 2017 that had only happened twice in the previous 30 years.
[Insert “it just means more” crack here.]
Plus, to put it as mildly and diplomatically as possible, this game always gets chippy. The two teams genuinely don’t like each other and that shows on the field. For the neutral football fan, that kind of game is a lot of fun to watch.
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Screw Auburn.
I’ve never liked those guys, and thinking back to the Fairley/Newton year makes me even angrier.
Bring in Baccari Rambo and Tre Battle as guest captains, and beat the asses of those people from the greater Opelika area.
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(Is their a lesser Opelika area?)
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I grew up in Columbus so this one just means more to me. It used to be a friendly rivalry, but then Junior Rosegreen committed aggravated assault against Ronnie Brown. Things grew steadily worse year over year after that, and then the Nick Fairley game happened, and afterwards some of my Auburn friends had the guts to taunt me about the game and act like what Fairley was doing was something they should be proud of. After that, no victory over Auburn will ever be big enough. Burn it down.
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I think you meant Reggie Brown, but point taken.
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Ugh. Auburn-related brain cramp. You’re right, of course.
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In 2003 they put an incredibly dirty hit on Damien Gary as he waited to receive a punt- at least it was instantly called.
After the hit on Brown in 2004, Junior Nosegay said he had fantasized about injuring Fred Gibson that way but had to settle for Brown.
The worst part of being there was listening to the hypocritical Auburn crowd, who were thrilled with the hit, smirking at each other and applauding and congratulating themselves for their Christian benevolence as Brown was helped off the field.
That place is like an endless Nuremberg rally.
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I don’t think either team had “legitimate playoff aspirations” in the 2015 game, but I guess that’s a pretty subjective stat. Certainly agree that it’s been the highest stake SEC contest on our schedule plenty of times recently.
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Another reason the change to September sucks…the stakes won’t feel as high as they usually do for this game.
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10/10 next year…this same week UT next year UT comes to Athens.
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i think the conference also wants more division games late. If UT ever gets their shit together there will be some division title games between us this november weekend in the future. May finally make that one a true rivalry.
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The Auburn game is the only time I deviate from “to hell with Georgia Tech”.
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Come on, it is always AU hate week, regardless of who they play. I think about GT football exactly one week out of the year. Don’t ever like them, but they are irrelevant until we get the ceremonial win against them out of the way. Dodd the Wimp killed the legitimacy of the rivalry when he bolted from the SEC, and killed techie football with it.
Save your hate for that position, it is just my opinion,and I listen to all those who still want it to be significant all year long. We will be on the same side in a couple of weeks.
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The South’s Oldest Rivalry.
Not The Deep South.
https://www.al.com/auburnfootball/2019/11/time-to-drop-the-deepauburn-vs-georgia-is-the-whole-souths-oldest-continual-rivalry.html
Can’t believe I’m linking al.com.
Also, hope we hang a hunnert on y’all. 🙂
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Agreed, UGA/AU is the South’s oldest football rivalry. (not AU/UGA).
Hoping Dawg fans leave JH wet.
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