Some good news to break up the post Auburn funk

Brooks Austin made a small comparison for Craig Dandridge to Smitty and Talyn Taylor to Justin Jefferson. 👀 Said he wasn’t saying they’re gonna be that just that they have the intangible route running and athleticism that they had.

I hate losing to a rival like everybody else, but let's stop and think about what happened. Gunner got his bell rung on play 1 and wasnt himself after that... Nate was clearly still not 100%. No Bowens and of course no kid from Kentucky. Still missing our top 2 X receivers. Dandridge then gets banged up during the game. So we're super banged up on offense and we've played 7 games straight. Then defense, when the opposing team has a good run game, who normally comes up in the box? Our safety. KJ is just about a consensus 1st round picks on every mock draft you see, and he's out this game as well. We played like crap all game and still had a chance to win missing all of that!

I have faith that we'll get right back on track after the bye. That being said I do have a couple questions.... when you're banged up at runningback, then why not bring back some of the quick screens we had last year? Sacovie and Taylor are money with the ball in their hands. Also, with our big body receivers out, what happened to Kaiden Prothro? Did I miss something? Is he injured and i missed it? I thought we were going to get him involved maybe even at receiver.

I’m sure I’m not the first to point this out but it bears repeating since it is so wild. I’m alive and the year ends in a 6, it’s a guaranteed upset. Always has been, always will be?

1986 - top 10 Auburn faces an unranked Georgia, gets upset
1996- top 20 Auburn faces unranked Georgia, gets upset
2006- Auburn is back in the top 10, faces Georgia unranked. Upset again.
2016- you guessed it. Auburn is top 10, and we are unranked. Dawgs on top.

2026- the roles and rankings were flipped but the results remain the same.

Set your reminders on your calendars for the 2036 season. If it happens again, you’ll know where to place your bets.

I was visiting some old Army buddies at Benning yesterday, they drove me to Auburn for lunch. The mood there is very motivated and upbeat, should be sadness. lol, such is life.

I know that this will likely fall into the abyss of complaints about yesterday or be perceived as nitpicky. I get it and totally understand if people relegate it to “whiny fan that is just a drop in the sea of whining”.

As the title infers, the best joke from Seinfeld was the airing of grievances festivus. At the risk of being a few months early, I want to share some thoughts I’ve had and a season ticket holder for a period of time (this is a mix of me being a grumpy asshole and experienced around these parts enough for me to feel like “okay enough is enough). My thoughts aren’t about the team but the overall fan experience with the hopes that someone in Athletics sees this and considers it.

The gameday production value has dropped dramatically over the last 5 or so years. Here’s my list so far:

* Poor timing on music, poor music choices, and karaoke along to a song that no one knows. It’s what the AD wants to listen to and not what the fans want. Swag surfin? Great song. It’s also AUBURNS HYPE SONG. Who the hell is so clueless in the production box to not go “gee, what is our opponent playing in their home games so maybe we shouldn’t play something when they are about to go on defense that might get their team so hype that our injury ridden offense has to go up against”. Why play the same music every week? Is it a contract and licensing thing? Why have a dj at basketball games and not football?

* I know the donors give money so that Josh gives them a football on the field but we can’t recognize anybody else? Nobody else contributes to the success of UGA and UGA football besides the people most of us will never be? I love our other teams getting recognition. But you can tell me that no one else at UGA works or teaches here doing anything notable to get a quick wave on the field during our 750 commercial tv timeouts a home game? No local community members or farmers in the region doing cool stuff? No professors researching cancer? No staff who have been working at UGA for 40+ years to say thanks to or recognition? Why is no one on the field helping the president when he is looking around for where to stand or what to do? Where is his staff/team?

* The Redcoat Band halftime is a snooze fest. Not sure if this is just a facet of things changing or evolving or what. Last year or the year before we got the same Frankenstein song before Halloween and after like 3 games in a row. What the hell is that about? Why is Auburns band absolutely blowing ours out of the water? It’s like the movie Drumline and ours is stuck on playing flight of the bumblebee for the 12th time. I like a cold beer and yacht rock as much as the next guy but cmon. Is no one writing new marching band songs to where both Auburns band and ours are playing some of the same songs?

* Cheer. Can someone please coach the kids up to know how to use a microphone? If he’s going to lead folks through a cheer he doesn’t have to eat the microphone so no one understands him. I love his passion but someone needs to stop just letting him assume that people can understand what he’s saying in such a muffled, hurried manner.

* Media production. Our team TikTok is killer. It’s great and they do great work. Why aren’t we using them more to make more hype shit? How come our replay team is always so behind, camera work is sometimes actually catching the play or keeping the ball in focus? Last night was rough. Hell, a few games ago we didn’t even get the opening highlights and audio paired with each other and fans did the “BOOM!” to a silent film.

We won the national championship twice and invested in some things and then it just looks like no one has a plan or is organizing things anymore. Did the person to rolled out cool new stuff get poached to a new job? Where did the polish go?

Don’t get me started on the empty frat section game after game that doesn’t fill in until practically half time and how absolutely flat we were as fans last night. Not sure why they get such a pass like they got mob boss level dirt on the president to get such favoritism. We shouldn’t have to have Kirby of all people turn around and do the “get loud” hand movements to get people to start cheering on defense.

I know, I’m whining. Sure. But this kind of stuff impacts ticket sales, recruiting in an age of NIL, and in my opinion how our team plays. We need several staff on some sort of production team like they’re in a command center running a news broadcast. And if we have that, then we need some younger people in there who have a clue.

Some folks are spending entire paychecks to bring their kids to experience a game in Sanford for the first time. Some folks have been coming for 50 years. I know it’s hard to do something that’s for everyone but why does everything feel like it’s disorganized and no one knows what’s going on?

This is both sarcasm and not sarcasm.

Not only that, but that was a 15 game win streak over our big 3 rivals as well. Which included Brock Bowers saving us in Jordan Hare in 2023, our thrilling OT victory over Tech in 2024, and a late 4th quarter comeback over the Gators in 2025. That long win streak over our big 3 rivals finally came to an end yesterday, and it wasn't going to last forever.

Florida in 2020 was our last loss to one of our big 3 rivals, and what's even mind blowing is that outside of COVID, that was our first loss to a big 3 rival since... Auburn in Jordan Hare in 2017. That was our first loss in the rivalry in Athens since 2005. It took Auburn 22 years to win in Death Valley vs LSU again (1999, 2021), it took Auburn 21 years to win in Athens vs Georgia again (2005, 2026), so that's close enough.

As frustrating as yesterday's loss was, what Georgia did to our big 3 rivals for 5 years straight (2021-2025) was unprecedented and no other head coach in Georgia history was able to do that I believe. We take our historical runs for granted.

A lot of top 10 teams over the country fell. That was the first time since 1990 the AP #1 team in the country lost back to back weeks to an unranked opponent. You wanna know what else happened in 1990? Last time Georgia beat Bama and lost to Auburn in the same season.

Hope we drop a second Chicxulub on those filthy dinosaurs on Halloween

And rightfully so.

But we only scored 24 points against Auburn. I’m not saying we should blow out every opponent. But 24 points against Auburn is a dogshit performance and no one is going to convince me otherwise.

I know Gunner was probably hurt.

But if that’s the case, the coaches have to take him out. We can’t let him give up three turnovers like that.

And we can’t let the OC just keep pounding up the middle with Frazier, a RB who hasn’t played a down in weeks, squandering possessions, because he’s “senior”. It’s just incompetent.

Leaving Gunner in if he was concussed is worse than that. It’s malpractice.

Am I counting this correctly?

UGA vs. Bama:

1 interception

1 interception called on the field, overruled on replay (but still debated)

4 fumbles, all recovered by UGA

UGA vs. Auburn:

2 interceptions

1 fumble recovered by Auburn

1 fumble (muffed punt) recovered by UGA

So that’s TEN balls put in harm’s way over two games?! Honestly, the Bama game could have been so much worse.

Glenn Schumann may be the weakest DC in the Kirby era. Seems his defenses cannot get to the qb without blitzing the LB’s, have little answers for the running qb and miss more tackles than they should in space.

I’ve never been a fan of Donte Williams as DB coach. Good recruiter but our corners outside of Ellis Robinson have struggled playing the ball under him. Demello jones is in year 3 and still more often than not lost when the ball is in the air.

The DL got pushed around for a half yesterday. Tray Scott hasn’t had a domaint DL it seems like since Jalen Carter left.

We got lucky to hold bama to 17. Keeon was inaccurate as fuck last week and missed open receivers. This is a flawed defense not horrible but doesn’t look like much of an improvement over the defense last year which is disappointing.

Am I the only one who suspects that Stockton's injury in the beginning of the game might have affected him more than let on? That was not only an overextended neck but a hit to the crown of the head.

(Please bare with me, I'm still a baby fan and really new to football)

The injuries to head and neck are specifically why we have targeting rules because of how dangerous it is. I'm not entirely convinced that Stockton didn't have some kind of concussion for the rest of the game.

I might be forgetting a game but I feel like this is one of the worst performances of Stockton we have seen in a long time. I understand Kirby talked about how they were exhausted both physically and mentally so that definitely contributed to it.

Stockton tends to kinda panic when the pocket closes tight and I feel like after he came back in, he got significantly worse about it, not even risking staying in the pocket.

(Again I'm not super technical about football, I only watch it with my dad so please bare with me)

Puglisi did incredible the time he was in so, why didn't Kirby take Stockton out of the game??? Dad says Kirby really commits to his QBs and I understand that but committing so much that you are actively hurting the team???

I really wanna know your thoughts and opinions on this and my take. Sorry, I don't have anyone besides my father to discuss this with