So let me get this straight . . . when the Georgia Bulldogs have fewer than half as many penalties as their opponent, have fewer than half as many penalty yards as their opponent, don't turn the ball over, take the ball away from the opposition with a pair of interceptions, allow fewer points in the second half than in the first half, develop the ability to run it between the tackles and use that ability to set up the passing game and to control the clock, and put Bacarri Rambo in the defensive backfield in critical game situations, they win? Who knew?
Any win over the Auburn Tigers is a good win, so I could not be more pleased to bring you the latest update of the Mark Richt Victory Watch. The Mark Richt Victory Watch now stands at 88. After 114 games on the Sanford Stadium sideline, Mark Richt needs 113 more wins to catch Vince Dooley atop the all-time school victories list.
Mark Richt's 88-26 (.772) record is the best in Georgia history 114 games into a coach's tenure. At the same point in their respective careers, Wally Butts was 82-29-3 (.733) and Vince Dooley was 75-34-5 (.680). Under Coach Richt, the Bulldogs have won six of the last eight series meetings in the Deep South's Oldest Rivalry to pull the all-time record between Georgia and Auburn nearly even at 52-53-8.
Georgia has beaten Auburn between the hedges just ten times in the 117-year history of the rivalry (due chiefly to the fact that the two teams regularly met at a neutral site in Columbus for much of the series' history), and three of those ten wins in Sanford Stadium have occurred in the Mark Richt era. The Red and Black's four straight wins over the Plainsmen give Georgia the longest Bulldog winning streak in the series since the Athenians took five in a row between 1944 and 1948. For the first time in my lifetime, an entire graduating class of student-athletes will receive their sociology degrees from the Alabama Polytechnic Institute without having experienced a win over Georgia in their academic careers.
I hate Auburn.
Go 'Dawgs! Auburna delenda est!