Georgia 20, Auburn 10

Look, I don't care for Auburn so before I can even talk about tonight's game, I have to get something off my chest. Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze says he is a born-again Christian and has been outspoken about his faith throughout his entire coaching career. If you think what that actually means is that he's a cheating, lying, philandering hypocrite, well, then you'd be exactly right. 

After Mr. Freeze coached at Ole Miss (2012-2016), the NCAA punished the football team for his many  recruiting and academic violations, finding that Mr. Freeze failed to monitor the program, allowing his staff to knowingly commit a series of recruiting violations, submit false information on recruiting paperwork, and not report known violations. The punishments included a two-year postseason ban, three years of probation, and a four-year ban on some scholarships. Ole Miss was forced to vacate 33 wins from 2010 to 2016, including 27 of Mr. Freeze's wins.

That's the cheating part. During the investigation, it was also discovered that Mr. Freeze had made multiple cell phone calls to an escort service. That's the philandering part. Mr. Freeze claimed the number had been misdialed, but Ole Miss discovered a "concerning pattern" of similar calls dating back to when he first arrived at Oxford. At least a dozen calls were made over 33 months, often while Mr. Freeze was traveling on business trips using an Ole Miss private plane. 

Mr. Freeze was forced to resign, but Jerry Falwell, Jr. and Liberty University looked at his pattern of recruiting violations and hiring of escorts and said, "that's our kind of guy" and made him their new head coach. While at Liberty (2019-2022), Mr. Freeze sent multiple unsolicited DMs to a former student who was a sexual assault survivor and had sued Liberty over the handling of her case. She was also critical of Liberty's decision to hire athletic director Ian McCaw, who had resigned from his previous job at Baylor University after the university sanctioned him for failing to identify and respond to a pattern of sexual violence by student-athletes. In his DMs to the former student, Mr. Freeze defended McCaw, calling him "the most Jesus-like leader I have ever seen or been around." Mr. Freeze later told ESPN that he was "sorry" for sending the messages.

Now Mr. Freeze is at Auburn (2023-present). So fuck those Tigers or War Eagles or whatever they're calling themselves.

Okay, on to tonight's game. It was ugly. The Georgia Bulldogs sucked at the game of football in the first half and fell behind Auburn, 10-0. I seriously considered turning the game off and doing something, anything, else other than watching my Bulldogs embarrass themselves on prime-time national television. 

The big play that turned the game, though, the game that will be all over the norts spews for the next several days, was a goal-line fumble by Auburn. It was initially called a fumble on the field, but video replay was, at the very least, equivocal. To my eye, and my eye is extremely biased in Georgia's favor I'll be the first to admit, it looked like a TD with the ball just barely crossing the line a nanosecond before it got fumbled. A matter of millimeters and microseconds. But after a long-ass review by the officials, it call on the field stood, it was ruled a fumble, and Georgia got the ball, and Auburn never recovered. 

Trailing 10-0, Georgia got the ball down the field on a series of Auburn miscues, mistakes, and penalties, including a roughing the passer and a deliberate targeting. The Bulldogs kicked a field goal as the first half ended to move to 10-3.  Then the Georgia defense, which played like ass in the first half, shut out the Auburn Tigers in the second half, and finally, leading 13-10 in the fourth quarter, Georgia QB Gunner Stockton led an epic, 8:45, 16-play, 78-yard drive down the field to take the final 20-10 lead.    

As I said, it was ugly, but a win's still a win, and an ugly win isn't as ugly as an ugly loss. What matters is that Georgia improves to 5-1 on the season and returns to Athens to host the 6-0 Ole Miss Rebels (Mr. Freeze's old team) next weekend. If Georgia plays next Saturday like they did in the first half tonight, we'll get blown out of the game. If Georgia plays like we did in the third quarter, we'll still lose. If we play like we did on that final, fourth-quarter drive, we might, maybe, have a chance.