Post Game Notes

UGA Sports Communications

Georgia Clinches Another SEC Eastern Division Title: With today’s 21-14 victory, Georgia clinched its third consecutive SEC Eastern Division title in this Kirby Smart’s fourth year as a head coach. They are the first Eastern Division team to win three straight since Florida won five in a row from 1992-96. The Dawgs will make their eighth appearance in the SEC Championship Game where they are 3-4, winning titles in 2002, 2005 and 2017.

Beating the Tigers After Their Bye: Georgia became the first team to defeat Auburn under Gus Malzahn following a bye week as the Tigers were 9-0 coming off a bye week including 8-0 against SEC foes and 5-0 against ranked opponents under Malzahn after a bye. The Tigers were the fifth team this year that Georgia faced that was coming off a bye week including the fourth SEC opponent.

In the overall series, Georgia now leads 60-56-8 including winning 15 of the past 18 meetings. Georgia is 17-12-2 on the Plains in this the Deep South’s oldest rivalry.

Scoring Defense: Coming in today, Georgia led the SEC and ranked 2nd nationally in scoring defense, allowing just 10.1 points per game. The Dawgs had to defend a season-high 86 plays, the most by an opposing team in the Kirby Smart era, and emerged with a 21-14 victory. The Tigers tallied 329 yards (84-rush, 245-pass) and didn’t score until the fourth quarter.

With a 14-0 edge at the half, Georgia now posted 27 scoreless quarters on the year including going six in a row after the 27-0 shutout of Missouri last week. In the first quarter, AU was shutout after running 17 plays for 60 yards (8-rush, 52-pass). In the second quarter, AU went for it on 4th-and-1 and lost 13 yards with senior David Marshall on the tackle as Georgia took over at midfield. The Tigers finished with no points after running 44 plays for 147 yards (32-rush, 115-pass). The Dawgs held the Tigers off the scoreboard through three quarters as they had 171 yards of total offense on 56 plays (49-rush, 122-pass) at that point. Auburn got its first score with 10:04 left in the contest, it was 12 play, 75-yard drive in 5:09 that made it 21-7 Georgia. Then, they made it a 21-14 game with 7:03 left in the contest on a Bo Nix two-yard rush, the first rushing TD allowed by Georgia this year. The TD drive took just 1:08, going 57 yards in five plays. The Tigers got the ball back at their 30 with 2:03 left in the game and the drive ended on a 4th-and-10 as frosh Trayvon Walker notched a sack.

Georgia’s leading tackler today was junior Monty Rice with 10 stops, and he leads the team this year now with 66. It was his third career game with 10+ stops. Coming in, Georgia and Auburn were two of the six FBS teams that have not allowed more than 24 points in a game this year and that streak continued.

Fromm Directs Offense To Another Win: Junior QB Jake Fromm improved to 32-6 as a starter including 11-5 versus Top 25 teams in this is 38th consecutive start. He finished 13-for-28 for 110 yards, 3 TDs, 0 Int.

At the half, Fromm was 9-for-18 for 91 yards and two touchdowns. Fromm now has 70 career TD passes, which ranks third in school history. He completed a 58-yard touchdown pass to Dominick Blaylock for a 7-0 lead with 5:56 in the first quarter. AU had allowed just 10 first quarter TDs in its last 39 games coming in today and only nine since the start of the 2017 season. Then with 20 seconds left in the first half, he completed a 5-yard TD pass to Brian Herrien on 3rd and 1 to make it 14-0. It covered 81 yards on seven plays in 59 seconds. In the first half, Fromm was sacked once, which marked only the sixth of the year. Georgia came in ranked second nationally in fewest sacks allowed. In the second half, Fromm directed a 12 play, 88-yard TD drive in 6:27 that extended the lead to 21-0 with 13 seconds left in the 3rd quarter. The drive was capped by a five-yard TD pass to graduate Eli Wolf.

Swift Goes Over A 1,000 Yards Again: For the second straight year,junior D’Andre Swift went over a 1,000 yards for the season. He eclipsed the mark in the second quarter on a 26-yard run. He is the fifth Dawg in history to have a pair of 1,000-yard seasons and the first since Nick Chubb did it three times (2014, ‘16-17). At the half, Swift has 80 yard on 10 carries and finished with 106 yards on 17 carries. It marked his eighth career game of 100+ yards. He ranks eighth in Dawg history with 2,694 yards.

Busy Day For Camarda: Sophomore Jake Camarda had an eventful day, punting 11 times for a 50.7 average including six for 50+ yards and four inside the 20. His 11 punts tied for the 11th most in a game in school history and most since Bucky Dilts had 11 versus Ole Miss in 1976. His first punt today tied his career high as it went 66 yards and was downed at the AU 2. He also had a 66-yarder versus USC his year. In SEC action coming in, he was second with a 48.7 punting average.

Blankenship’s Afternoon: Graduate PK Rodrigo Blankenship had three PATs with four touchbacks on four kickoffs. Blankenship now has 405 career points.

For Starters & Game Captains: Graduate DB Jake Reed now has a team-high 39 consecutive starts for the defense while junior QB Jake Fromm leads the offense with 38 consecutive starts. Today’s game captains were Reed, Fromm and junior tailback D’Andre Swift.