No tears over Tiger schedule from Georgia football fans

Last year the Georgia football team played all four major rivals and Notre Dame on the road. Meanwhile, Auburn spent November in Jordan-Hare stadium. Now, the script is flipped

Last season, Georgia football fans watched the Dawgs go on the road against all four of its big rivals – Auburn, Florida, Georgia Tech, and Tennessee. The Dawgs threw in a trip to South Bend to play Notre Dame to boot. Now, the Bulldog Nation is being entertained by Auburn head coach Guz Malzahn’s appeal for mercy.

Facing a run of consecutive SEC road games against two of the top five programs in the country, Alabama and Georgia, Malzahn wants to fix the Auburn schedule. “What I want is one home, one away.”

Of course he does.

This year.

Georgia football fans would have been far more impressed with Malzahn’s sincerity if they had heard the calls for a schedule correction last year.

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Flipping the script

With Auburn facing a likely disastrous end to a disappointing season,  calls for buying out Malzahn’s brand-new contract are seriously considered by pundits and casual fans alike. Life would look at better for the head Tiger if he could get one of those two arch rivals at home.

How can a Georgia football fan take Malzahn seriously? In 2017 Auburn played both Alabama and Georgia at home.  The advantage propelled an overrated Tiger squad into a neutral site SEC Championship Game thrashing by Georgia. The following bowl loss to UCF was as revealing was it was embarrassing. Now the script is flipped, and Malzahn wants to be heard.

May 11 2018 “I think the big thing is having them staggered – one at home and one away – would probably be the best for those two at the end.”

May 30 2018 “That needs to be done,”

July 19 2018 “I think it’d be great if we could split those up, I think when you look at fariness and equity across the league, nobody else has to do it.”

Indeed. Let’s be fair.

Payment due

Kirby Smart is willing to be fair. Give the Dawgs two consecutive home games in the Deep South’s oldest football rivalry like Georgia gave to Auburn in 2012 and 2013.

“Yeah, absolutely. If we get a chance to fix that and return the favor that we paid to them.” Smart said. Then he added this typical Smart tagline.

“I hear about that a lot.”

You better believe he does.

The 2013 win by Auburn after a freak tipped pass touchdown gave Auburn the lead erased Aaron Murry’s most heroic outing and gave the Tigers only their second win in eight years over Georgia. So yes, Georgia football fans will accept two home games to fix Auburn’s problem, but nothing less.

“Return the favor that we paid to them” – Kirby Smart

Blind eye in the face of good fortune

Malzahn appears oblivious to the advantage his team held in 2017. After last year’s SEC Championship loss to the Georgia football team, he said, “The regular season, we played extremely well at home,” Malzahn was quoted by Dawgnations Mike Griffeth. “You know, then the next, I guess, two weeks later we had to play Alabama, another No. 1 team at home.”

“So I believe we played champions and defending champions three out of four weeks. That’s a tough challenge, there’s no doubt.”

A challenge much more easily overcome at home . . . at home.

Georgia survived road games against it’s two arch rivals Auburn and Georgia Tech in 2017 and a neutral site game against Florida to advance to the College Football Playoff Championship game, so no one in Athens Town is crying over Auburn’s difficulty this season.