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When Lumpkin opened the game with about a 4 yard loss, I thought it was going to be a long day. I was right about that. It ended up being a long day for those toilet paper toting, orange clad Auburn Tiger faithful. In what has to be one of the wackiest college football seasons in memory, at least for UGA fans, we finally showed up on ofense and REALLY showed up on defense to absolutely destroy a top 5 ranked AU team. It was the culmination of a season of frustration for Dawg fans, the game that gave us validation for trying to still say we’re a good football team at heart if things go our way. It was what we needed. It was glorious. As enjoyable as that game was, the fact that we’ve had two weeks to enjoy it and rest up for a pretty darn good Tech team just made it all the sweeter.

Looking Back at Week 11

The good: For a change, the good will be longer than the bad. Stafford looked poised and we appear to be seeing the payoff of him spending more time with the receivers, as they were largely on the same page all day. He even threw a ball away though it appeared to be against the very fiber of his being. Sure he had two fumbles, but the 2nd one was just a great play and he had over 80 yards on the ground, showing a dimension of his game that he might need morenext year than we’ve fully grasped (given our OL next season). A big round of applause for our whole receiving corps, TEs included, as they made catches all day on balls that had been dropped all season. You can’t say enough about the way the offense put together long drives and the defense generally kept the AU O off the field all day. Because of the big early lead and the offense’s ability to control the ball for long stretches, the AU attack wasn’t able to grind it out. The defense got pressure early and rattled Cox, who appeared to be doing his best Quincy Carter in Columbia, circa 2000 impression. Paul Oliver was everywhere. Tra Battle had more catches than any of their receivers and almost had as many as their whole team. It was beautiful. Richt has now pulled even with Tubberville in their head-to-head series (3-3) and we took back the overall series scoring lead.

The bad: Not much for once. We still missed a PAT which wasn’t good. We still turned the ball over 3 times.

The indifferent: For the most part everything seemed to go well. Mikey Henderson was pretty much a non-factor in the return game, but AU’s punter was having as bad a day as Cox almost, so it’s hard ot fault him. Our defense at the end of the first half tried to pull the same stunt they did at the end of the 1st half against UT this year, yielding a big TD that got them right back into it. The only difference was that while we did go 3-and-out and it appeared the momentum was swinging the other way, the D came up with a big turnover to set up our final score of the half and put AU in a huge 30-7 hole that they weren’t able to crawl out of.

GT Offense

The enigma that is Tech’s offense comes into Sanford this year with one of the premier weapons college football. Luckily for us, the guy responsible for getting that weapon the ball has shown a propensity to implode in this game each year. The GT offense has looked amazing at times and looked absolutely dreadful at others (sound familiar?). Who knows which version we’ll see this weekend.

Reggie Ball returns for his 4th season as the GT starter at QB, a fact that most Tech fans shake their head in disbelief at. Like Joe Hamilton, Ball is an undersized signal caller. That’s about where the similarities end. Ball has a career completion percentage just under 50% including this season’s 47% mark. He’s got an impressive 20 TDs, but his 10 INTs are something of a surprise from a 4th year starter. While Ball is a mobile QB, his scrambling has never been a large part of the offense. They had begun working that into the play-calling more this season to solid success prior to an injury he sustained against Maryland. As a result, his rushing attempts per game have dwindled to just a few although he appears to have been moving pretty well against Duke. In terms of his scrambling, I’d compare him to Woodson of UK in that he’s not afraid of contact, like Leak, but would prefer to throw the ball.

At RB, Tashard Choice has emerged as a workhorse back. The junior transfer from Oklahoma has received the bulk of the team’s carries on the season, especially down the stretch of the ACC schedule, where he’s had 26 or more carries in 4 out of the last 6 games, including two games of 32 or more. With the exception of the Clemson game (where the big lead necessitated a shift in approach), Choice has gone for over 100 yards in each of the last 7 games. He’s averaged almost 5 ypc this season and has 9 TDs on the ground.

At WR, Tech sports that weapon I was referring to earlier, Calvin Johnson, he of the 6-5, 235-pound frame, freakish leaping ability, great hands, surprising speed, etc. Johnson is a matchup nightmare against most DBs, where his size and speed make for long afternoons. Tech OC Patrick Nix has worked on moving Johnson around this season, with him lining up in the slot a good bit. CJ has 13 TDs on the year and is deadly in the redzone. He’ll be a top pick in the NFL draft due to his size and speed, but I thought Mike Williams was going to do really well in the NFL and he’s yet to do anything. They’re very similar players. Opposite CJ is the unrelated James Johnson, who has parlayed his role as Calvin’s support receiver into a very solid season. The sophomore has 6 TD grabs on the season and over 500 yards, so he’s a legit threat. He looks small next to Johnson, but he’s decently sized. They rarely throw to the TE.

The GT OL sports only one starter listed over 300 pounds, so our undersized interior DL should be able to hold up passably well. Sr RT Mansfield Wrotto is a first year starter after moving over from his DT spot where he started for 3 seasons. He’s the lone 300+ guy. They’ve started the same 5 guys for every game all season, so the injury bug has been kind to these guys and they’ve responded in kind, not allowing too many sacks on the year. They’re giving up just over 1 per game.