ATHENS — Earnest Greene kept it simple when discussing what lessons Georgia might have learned in its 41-34 loss to Alabama.
“Yeah, win the game,” Greene said on Monday.
Georgia will get a chance to show that this coming Saturday, as the Bulldogs host Auburn. It will be the first time Georgia plays a regular season game coming off of a loss since the 2020 game against Mississippi State.
The loss against Alabama snapped a 42-game regular season winning streak for the Bulldogs.
Normally when Georgia has lost to Alabama, it’s had a few weeks to gather itself and come up with a new game plan. Now they’ll have only six days to do so, following a game where so much went wrong for the Bulldogs.
They had 4 turnovers, 10 penalties and faced a 28-point deficit just minutes into the second quarter.
That Georgia was able to take a 34-33 lead in the fourth quarter against Alabama speaks to how much potential this team has. But plenty will wonder how much Georgia might have in the tank after exerting so much energy.
“That was a very different game to evaluate from a standpoint of the second half because everything was very different than maybe a start of a game,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said. “It’s hard to even evaluate because of that because you had to throw the ball. You had to catch up. But I’m certainly proud of the resiliency they showed to do it. But just as proud as I am of that, I’m disappointed at the start of it. But like I said, we’ve got to go get ready for Auburn, who’s a really, really good football team.”
Like Georgia, Auburn enters the game coming off a loss. The Tigers led for a majority of the second half, only to lose 27-21 at home to Oklahoma. It was the third loss of the year for Auburn, with all of them coming at home.
Saturday’s game will be played in Sanford Stadium, Georgia’s first game at home since Sept. 7. The Bulldogs know they can’t overlook Auburn after what happened last year, when the Tigers very nearly upset Georgia.
The Bulldogs escaped with a 27-20 win. Georgia, as it has often of late, fell behind in that game early.
Smart hopes his team will come out aggressive, further showing they’ve put the Alabama loss behind them.
“I can’t sit here and say they need to play desperate,” Smart said. “I think that’s not a good choice of words to play desperate. I think they need to play aggressive and play loose, but I don’t want to ever be playing in desperation.”
This team doesn’t have much experience in losing. But there’s still a strong belief that Georgia can overcome adversity, even if much of it to this point has been self-inflicted.
“A lot of the older guys on the team like Carson, me, Tate, a lot of the guys that have been here from ‘21 and on,” linebacker Smael Mondon said. “I feel real confident in the guys, I don’t think they’re going to let it linger. We got confidence, we know what we can do as a team, we’ve just got to learn from the mistakes and improve on it. It’s a new week.”
Auburn will present a different set of challenges. It’s critical that Georgia figure out solutions to those problems, as opposed to circling back to what happened this past Saturday.
Georgia has only lost back-to-back games under Smart three times, with it last coming during the 2018 season when Georgia lost to Alabama and Texas to close out the season.
With a 12-team College Football Playoff, Georgia still has plenty to play for. Per the latest Coaches and AP Polls, Georgia is still a top 5 team in the country.
If they play up to that ranking, and not the opponent in the rearview mirror, Georgia should have no problem with Auburn. But that is easier said than done.
“We don’t really believe in moral victories,” Greene said. “You know, the standard is the standard, and we try to uphold the standard of what we believe excellence is. But, you know, obviously, playing a hard fighting, showing this team doesn’t have no quit in them.”
