Deep Inside the Numbers: Auburn-Georgia First Blood Part II

First, a poem:

So I Barn so hard Kirby Smart stays whiny

And Alabama snaps wildly

Georgia, what’s forty points minus seventeen

Can you please remind me?

Barn so hard, this season crazy

Y'all don't know that Gus ain’t playing

The Tigers went four and two and he knew that it’s gravy

Barn so hard, this season weird

We ain't even 'pose to be here

Barn so hard, since we here

It's only right that we ain’t scared

Try us, we liable to go Davis

Take your pick: Carlton, Ryan, or Chris, Kick 6

Barn so hard, Bama’s rush stopped, Ridley looked like liver chopped

Jalen Hurts just losing snaps, fumbling the ball like a slick rock

Barn so hard, You know who, Kerryon gonna play this week too

He’ll be great, unlike Georgia’s fate

When Chubb and Michel run for like forty two

Barn so hard, let's run fades, Slayton deep on like six plays

Full throttle, swag waddle, KJ scores in like three ways

(Barn so hard) Georgia behave, be happy with the Peach game

Playoffs, big rings, Gus takin' Auburn to New Year’s day

Clean like Stidham’s Jersey.

Man, Auburn’s so good at slaughtering elephants, it might as well be related to the president. Jeff Holland controlled the Tide better than an engineer from Holland. Auburn dismissed Alabama quicker than a mall security guard seeing Roy Moore walking through the door. Rednecks across the state were madder than that one time they thought a The Onion headline was real.

This Auburn team has evolved from an ugly, hardworking caterpillar to a fully formed Black Witch Moth, la mariposa de la muerte, the harbinger of death. Once it shows up, bad things happen, man. Most fanbases reflect in the way their team goes about its business. When the 2004 team was winning in workmanlike fashion, the Auburn student section was a friendly place, thanking opponents for coming and even being happy for their minor successes in the face of the Auburn machine. This Auburn fan base is laughing in the faces of their enemies, dunking on opponents like Russell Westbrook with debts to collect. This Auburn fanbase gladly dances on your grave after burying you with your horse.

It was weird to see Auburn beat Alabama and Georgia so easily, I’ll be honest. I thought the Tigers could win, but I didn’t expect the two biggest rivals of my favorite team done away with so easily. Auburn had Georgia looking like Mizzou and Alabama looking like a good tune-up for LaMo. Nothing about those two games was “luck” or Alabama & Georgia playing terribly. It was two teams going up against a much better team.

The offense has caught up with the defense. This was the hope of all of us after the Clemson game. We knew the defense was a beast, and that Kevin Steele had actually improved upon a defensive line that had Carl Lawson and Montravius Adams the year before. We hoped Gus could “get out of Chip’s way” enough to get the offense up to the level of the defense. This led many on #AuburnTwitter and even this very website’s comment sections to blame Gus for all the bad plays and Chip for all the good ones. This is an incredibly irrational theory, even for the Auburn fanbase’s usual standard.

Now we face our greatest challenge yet. Auburn faces off* with its oldest rival Georgia yet again. This time, the winner gets an SEC championship and a trip to the Playoff, whereas last time the winner just got to laugh heartily at the other’s fans getting mad about fourth quarter passes by backup quarterbacks. Seriously, just don’t get blown out. Be mad at your team, not the one doing the whooping. Auburn teaches its offensive players to try to score, maybe Georgia should try that too.

If Gus beats Georgia twice in the same year and keeps both Alabama and Georgia from playing in the playoffs, he should get a statue regardless of how Auburn does from then on. His statue should be him doing his “BOOM” fist-pump with “We Beat the Dog Crap Out Of Them, Didn’t We?” engraved below in pure brass.

Let’s go deep inside a few numbers, shall we?

3: SEC Championships played in by Auburn since 2001

3: SEC Championships won by Auburn since 2001

115: points scored by Auburn in Gus Malzahn’s previous two trips to Atlanta

40: Points scored by Auburn against Georgia

48: Yards gained by Georgia’s running back tandem the last time they faced Auburn

1: Times Auburn has played Georgia in 2017

0: Times Georgia has beaten Auburn in 2017

1: Number of Nick Fairley(s) it takes to make Georgia fans mad

Just beat ‘em again, Auburn.

We are making no friends this season, just continuing our reign of terror. Auburn is torching the countryside of its rivals, salting the earth and plundering recruits and hype along its way. It’s a beautiful thing, this tour of Auburn Piracy. I hope it continues, but even if Auburn’s streak ends this weekend I will still think of this as one of the best Auburn seasons I can remember. It has been fun to be an Auburn fan in 2017, and any season the Tigers spank Alabama and Georgia so thoroughly is a successful one.

Still, let the flag fly. There’s pillaging to be done.

*Speaking of sequels, when is the Face/Off sequel happening? Missed opportunity.