ATHENS \u2014 Auburn coach Alex Golesh says his Tigers are excited about the opportunity to play \u201ca big-time program on a big-time stage\u201d at No. 1-ranked Georgia on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Auburn, however, will be without preseason All-American linebacker Xavier Atkins, who\u2019s tied for the team lead with 3 sacks and second with 37 tackles.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will be without Xavier Atkins this week,\u201d Golesh said at his Monday press conference. \u201dWe\u2019ll revisit it next week when we meet again on Monday here. We\u2019ll keep it in-house in terms of anything beyond that\u2014that\u2019ll be the only piece of it that I will be addressing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Tigers (3-2, 1-2 SEC) have a storied history with the Bulldogs (6-0, 4-0), owning an 18-18 mark against Georgia at Sanford Stadium in what\u2019s known as the \u201cDeep South\u2019s Oldest Rivalry,\u201d which stands as the second-most played series with 130 games between the teams dating back to 1892.<\/p>\n
Auburn also has three regular-season wins against AP No. 1-ranked teams dating back to the start of the BCS era (1998), which ties Texas A&M for the most in college football.<\/p>\n
But for all of that historical data, Auburn\u2019s first-year head coach knows it still comes down to blocking and tackling, and that\u2019s why he and his staff did a deep dive into themselves during their bye week.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought the intent was positive \u2026. The mentality of the team is we have so much to prove,\u201d Golesh said. \u201cWhen we are at our best, we can play at the highest level of football, when we\u2019re not, we\u2019re just good enough to get embarrassed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Golesh, much like Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer last week, emphasized the importance of settling in early and getting off to a good start, as UGA has out-scored opponents 164-40 in the first quarters of games.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest thing we are trying to get to is, we\u2019ve always done an elite job from the in-game adjustments standpoint in the sense of this is how they\u2019re attacking us, this is where we go,\u201d Golesh said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like we\u2019ve done an elite job with that this year. Go back and say like, can we get to that even earlier in our game plan process, where early on in the game you\u2019re on the right thing to go create efficient runs. It can be the running back, it can be the quarterback whatever you feel your advantage can be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Auburn quarterback Byrum Brown has accounted for 105 rushing and passing touchdowns in his career, which is eight more than any other active player in the FBS ranks.<\/p>\n
Brown rushed for a touchdown and passed for a touchdown in the Tigers\u2019 most recent game at No. 14 Tennessee, a 24-14 loss.<\/p>\n
The same principles of finding advantages apply for Auburn defensively at Georgia, and that presents a challenge with Gunner Stockton playing at an elite level.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we prep for Georgia, number one team in the country, and you watch it, all three phases, certainly look that way,\u201d Golesh said. \u201cOffensively, man, the quarteback is a really really good player, makes a lot of things go, doesn\u2019t make a ton of mistakes. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou could tell (he\u2019s) a veteran guy that\u2019s played in the system that gets the ball to the right places, can move it with his feet, can escape in a lot of ways.\u201d<\/p>\n
Golesh is equally impressed with the Georgia defense.<\/p>\n
\u201cDefensively it\u2019s a mirror image, up front really big, really stout, really physical, that second level, man, size, speed and physical, and then in the back end, that secondary is real, both corners and safeties can cover, they do a really good job of taking what you do away.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got to play physical, as you do every week in this league, you can\u2019t turn the football over, you have to maximize possessions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATHENS \u2014 Auburn coach Alex Golesh says his Tigers are excited about the opportunity to play \u201ca big-time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":881295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[1607,2662,399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":["post-881294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-college-football","tag-college-sports","tag-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=881294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/881295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=881294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=881294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=881294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}