Auburn had the game against Georgia won, but then the Tigers managed to give away every single bit of momentum in a devastating loss.
AUBURN, Ala. — Even Cam Newton, perhaps the greatest college football player ever, has his limits. Back in town on the occasion of his jersey retirement, Newton spent most of Saturday night’s game against Georgia stalking the sidelines of Jordan-Hare Stadium. Megaphone in hand, Newton exhorted the crowd, berated the refs, did all he possibly could to fire up the Auburn Tigers. You got the sense that Newton — who won both a Heisman and a national championship in one single, glorious year at Auburn — would have given a whole lot to suit up for one more game.
And a whole lot of the sellout crowd at Jordan-Hare would have given up a whole lot themselves to see the current model of the Tigers show even a fraction of the fire that Newton brought to this stadium in 2010. Instead, this is a team adrift. Now 3-3 on the season, 0-3 in conference play, Auburn is as low as it’s ever been in the Freeze era after letting a potential signature win get punched right out of their hands.
Auburn fans spent much of the middle chunk of Saturday night’s game raging about the officiating, sometimes with justification, sometimes not. Yes, the officials ruled against Auburn in the night’s most debatable call, appeared to miss several calls that would have gone against Georgia, and largely covered Pat Dye Field in yellow laundry. But by the game’s end, even Aubie the Tiger couldn’t deny the truth.
The officials didn’t cost Auburn a win against Georgia. Auburn cost Auburn a win against Georgia. And the blame for that belongs on the shoulders of the team and its leadership — starting with Freeze.
“We felt great about the preparation, felt great about coming into this game. Felt like we were going to win the game,” Freeze said. “And here I am feeling again that we don't quite know how to do that.”
Not exactly a rousing show of confidence in one’s own team, one’s coaching staff or one’s entire operation. Asked about accountability for yet another game that slipped out of his control, Freeze responded, “Show up to work Monday, get ready to win a football game.”
They had this football game won, or at least in firm control. But then Auburn managed to give away every single bit of the momentum it built up in what was, by any measure, an SEC-elite-level first half. Just look at the scoreboard: inches from the end zone, with a near-certain opportunity to go up 17-0, Auburn fumbled the ball … and then never scored again all night.
A goal-line fumble is maddening. Giving up a late field goal to go into the half up only a touchdown is disappointing. But never scoring the rest of the night? Managing just 50 second-half yards? Utterly rolling over before a Georgia offense that was not exactly 2021-Georgia quality? Unacceptable at this level, at this point in the season, at this point in Freeze’s tenure.
Freeze acknowledged that the performance of every position on the field “all has to be looked at, for sure.” The maddening thing for Tiger fans is, in the first half, Auburn showed exactly what it’s capable of — a quick-twitch offense able to spread the field and move the ball, with a quarterback in Jackson Arnold capable of doing damage with both his arm and his legs. But that team didn’t show up in the second half, and the one that did was no match for Georgia.
“Everybody was ticked off at half. But the second half didn't feel like it had the same energy,” Freeze said. “Some of the credit goes to Georgia for the second half. But I don't know, we didn't really fight with the same physicality and energy.”
That’s what makes Auburn under Freeze so difficult to believe in. With all the advantages in their recruiting, in their war chest, on their roster, even on the scoreboard, they still manage to squander every bit of their good fortune.
At halftime, Auburn officials had berated the officials on the way to the locker room. But at game’s end, the referees weren’t taking a chance on that, or something worse, occurring. They raced out of the stadium’s southeast gate at full sprint, boos and curses raining down on them from the nearby student section. They were in their buses and rolling with a police escort before the Auburn band even finished playing “War Eagle.”
The officiating might — might — buy Freeze a tiny bit of breathing room this week; after a loss like this, it’s easy for fans to fixate on The Refs, and even easier when said officials make some clear mistakes benefitting Georgia. But soon enough, the attention will return to Freeze, and his winless conference record, and his still-remaining slate of ranked opponents, and his estimated $16 million buyout, and numbers will be run. Auburn’s famously activist boosters do not like to hear lines like “We find ways not to win football games,” and will not be satisfied with excuses. Not anymore.
About 45 minutes after the referees’ buses peeled out, Newton took one long last walk across the field, a contemplative look on his face as he lofted touchdown passes to his kids. At almost the exact same point where Georgia had punched the ball loose from Arnold’s hands, Newton tossed his own football from hand to hand. And when one of his children grabbed for it, Newton, seemingly instinctively, pulled it to his chest with that old familiar two-armed iron grip. He walked through the end zone, and nobody would be ripping that ball from his hands.
Category: General Sports
