{"id":3848,"date":"2016-11-16T20:00:13","date_gmt":"2016-11-17T01:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordoncollegefootball.com\/?p=3848"},"modified":"2025-09-13T15:09:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T19:09:07","slug":"uga-defense-beats-auburn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2016\/11\/16\/uga-defense-beats-auburn\/","title":{"rendered":"UGA Defense Defeats Auburn, With a Little Help from UGA Offense"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In what was described to me that night as &#8220;the moment the tide turned for <strong>Kirby Smart<\/strong> at <strong>Georgia<\/strong>,&#8221; the <strong>Georgia\u00a0Bulldogs<\/strong> defeated the <strong>Auburn Tigers<\/strong> between the hedges Saturday, 13-9.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the slight margin in the score, Georgia played an impressive game and, as has been their pattern this season, they went back to the drawing board on defense and stopped one of the best running games in the SEC. Admittedly, Auburn was down their best weapon on offense, as running back<strong>\u00a0Kamryn Pettway<\/strong> was still nursing an injured leg from the Tigers&#8217; previous week win over <strong>Vanderbilt<\/strong>. But Georgia&#8217;s defense was still solid enough to make <strong>Kirk Herbstreit&#8217;s<\/strong> #3 &#8220;Best Player&#8221; spot for the week:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">My top PERFORMANCES of wk 11<br \/>Team <br \/>1-Iowa<br \/>2-Pitt<br \/>3-USC<br \/>4-Ole Miss<br \/>5-UGA<br \/>Player<br \/>1-S.Patterson<br \/>2-K.Ferentz<br \/>3-UGA Def<br \/>4-T.Koufie<br \/>5-J.Hurts<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Kirk Herbstreit (@KirkHerbstreit) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/KirkHerbstreit\/status\/798254402524082176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">November 14, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>SMART TACKLES DEFENSE<\/h3>\n<p>Coach Kirby Smart has been consistent all season in addressing each underperforming element of his inherited team and coming back stronger every week. This week is was a renewed defense that shut down the Auburn running game after allowing the Tigers one touchdown early in the first. Auburn, a team that had been averaging more than 500 offensive yards a game, only managed to gain 32 in the second half against Georgia. Of course, the UGA fan base, emboldened as it was to be winning at home during a tougher than usual season, helped shut down the run a bit:<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/UGAfootballLive\/status\/798139607388917760\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/twitter.com\/UGAfootballLive\/status\/798139607388917760<\/a><\/p>\n<h3>OFFENSE BOOSTS DEFENSE<\/h3>\n<p>The defense also got a big boost from a rapidly improving offense, a line that has taken a lot of heat this season. The Bulldogs had a total yard output of 343, while holding Auburn to only 164. Additionally, Georgia finally learned how to drive down the field, with several of those drives going 10 plays or more, and the final drive, the one that ran out the clock, looking like a slow and steady strategy worthy of the <strong>NFL.<\/strong> Auburn&#8217;s likes to move fast, eschewing huddles, and by the end of the game, they were spent.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur defense got to rest. Going into this game that was my major concern, was not getting to rest because of their tempo,\u201d Smart said post-game, praising the offense. \u201cYou negate tempo when you eat clock with your offense and you\u2019re able to get some first downs. Even if you don\u2019t score, cash in, get in field goal range and get knocked out, all the things that we did wrong, we possessed the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>BLACKOUT SANFORD STADIUM SATURDAY<\/h3>\n<p>It worked, <a href=\"http:\/\/onlineathens.com\/sports\/2016-11-16\/belief-behind-georgia-s-trick-plays-didn-t-produce-points-vs-auburn\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">despite two unsuccessful trick plays<\/a> (one an interception in the end-zone) that will hopefully be tried again. This week&#8217;s game at <strong>Sanford Stadium<\/strong> in <strong>Athens<\/strong> might be the time to try again, in fact, as Georgia takes on 4-5 <strong>Louisiana-Lafayette<\/strong> in the first &#8220;Blackout&#8221; game of the season (where the players and the fans wear black). The Bulldogs haven&#8217;t had the best luck with blackout games, so the added risk of trick plays might be a bit much Saturday. Either way, the Bulldogs are fun to watch again. And it didn&#8217;t take Coach Kirby Smart very long.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color:#fff;display:inline-block;font-family:'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#a7a7a7;font-size:11px;width:100%;max-width:594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding:0;margin:0;text-align:left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/622865198\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow:hidden;position:relative;height:0;padding:72.727273% 0 0 0;width:100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/622865198?et=1I8IgwjTQmh1AxoKhHFPuw&#038;viewMoreLink=on&#038;sig=9wUr5wqmZropQewp0HIiBBJ0iba6vSDJTYXg6YJHON8=&#038;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"432\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"display:inline-block;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;margin:0;\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin:0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In what was described to me that night as &#8220;the moment the tide turned for Kirby Smart at Georgia,&#8221; the Georgia\u00a0Bulldogs defeated the Auburn Tigers between the hedges Saturday, 13-9. Despite the slight margin in the score, Georgia played an impressive game and, as has been their pattern this season, they went back to the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1710,"featured_media":3887,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,35583,35578],"tags":[162,65,1031,106],"class_list":["post-3848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sec","category-auburn-tigers","category-georgia-bulldogs","tag-auburn-tigers","tag-georgia-bulldogs","tag-kamryn-pettway","tag-kirby-smart"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1710"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3848"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78339,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3848\/revisions\/78339"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}