Guerry Clegg: Georgia-Auburn rivalry has its share of odd games
It has been the scene of sugar falling out of the sky and Aaron Murray crashing to the turf, with a little help from Nick Fairly. The Hose Bowl. The first overtime game in SEC history. Then, of course, there was The Prayer at Jordan-Hare.
And that's just the Georgia-Auburn games played in Auburn.
The Deep South's Oldest Rivalry is also perhaps college football's oddest rivalry. One of the oddities is how closely competitive the series has been. They've played 118 times and it's dead even 55 wins each and eight ties. This is the 17th time the series has been tied.
Georgia needs to win to take the lead in the series for the first time since 1986, the year of the aforementioned and infamous Hose Bowl. Auburn turned on the sprinklers to soak Georgia fans who were celebrating their 20-16 upset on the Jordan-Hare Stadium turf.
Oddities such as so many players and coaches going from one school to the other. This year is not an exception with Tracy Rocker, the former Auburn All-American, coaching the Bulldogs' defensive line, and former Georgia safety Will Muschamp running the Tigers' defense.
They recruit the same players, evidenced by the fact that Auburn's roster consists of more players from the state of Georgia than the state of Alabama.
Here's another oddity. The last two times Auburn has beaten Georgia -- 2010 and 2013 -- the Tigers ended up playing for the national championship. Georgia's last three wins over Auburn were by a combined score of 117-14.
There are no championship implications this year, of course, and with both offenses struggling, neither appears capable of winning by a large margin.
Many people outside of the programs -- and perhaps even some fans -- look at the disappointing records for both teams and deem Saturday's game to be irrelevant. But it's still the Georgia-Auburn game, and a win will make this season's disappointment somewhat more tolerable for someone.
Georgia, at 6-3, still has a shot at a 10-win season and possibly a return to the Top 25 in the final rankings. Auburn, at 5-4, needs a win to essentially
assure itself of a winning season with Idaho coming up next. Otherwise, losses to Georgia and Alabama would mean the Tigers must win their bowl game to avoid a losing season.
Both head coaches need to win this game for their job security.
Georgia's Mark Richt might have to win out to save his job, although an 8-4 regular season finish might be enough for a reprieve. If so, then Richt certainly would need a big year next season to win back some support. One thing Richt has been able to do in 15 seasons at Georgia is fare well against Tennessee, Auburn and Georgia Tech with a 31-12 record against those three. He has lost to two of the three in the same season only once, in 2009, when the program hit its first slide under Richt. Now, having already lost to Tennessee, he runs the risk of getting swept in those for the first time ever.
Auburn's Gus Malzahn is probably safe for this year, if for no other reason than sheer economics. Auburn is still paying Gene Chizik. His salary as North Carolina's defensive coordinator is saving Auburn about $750,000 a year, but Auburn still has to pay him the rest of his buyout. The school also is embroiled in a fight with fired baseball coach Sunny Golloway for the four years left on his contract, a balance of some $2.5 million. Auburn fired him "with cause" to avoid having to pay, but his attorney, John Saxon, might put up enough of a fight to get a settlement.
That should be resolved by this time next year, and Chizik will be another year closer to being off the books.
Even a 7-6 finish this year, following last year's 8-5, would put Malzahn in a precarious spot for next season. Having a losing season would only make it worse. The last three Auburn coaches to have losing seasons -- Terry Bowden, Tommy Tuberville and Chizik -- were fired or pressured to resign.
So, sure, even the best-case scenarios for both teams are unfulfilling in light of the early season hope and the general expectations of both fan bases. But for the loser Saturday, a bad season will only get that much worse.
Guerry Clegg is an independent correspondent. You can write to him at sports@ledger-enquirer.com
This story was originally published November 10, 2015 at 10:17 PM with the headline "Guerry Clegg: Georgia-Auburn rivalry has its share of odd games ."