close calls, decisions that led to loss

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247sports.com

Behind the close calls, decisions that led to Auburn's loss

ByBrandon Marcello

5-7 minutes

AUBURN, Alabama — Auburn’s first two drives in the fourth quarter Saturday were a thing of beauty.

The No. 12 Tigers spread out No. 4 Georgia, hit quick passes and marched down the field for their first touchdowns of the night.

Suddenly, an offense that looked completely lost was out of the woods and back in the game, down 21-14 with 7 minutes remaining.

Auburn’s last two drives, however, were filled with missed opportunities and bad breaks, including an overturned catch.

A beautiful sideline pass to Seth Williams picked up 17 yards and placed Auburn at Georgia’s 22-yard line. Officials reviewed the play and determined, however, Williams stepped out of bounds and did not have control of the ball. The catch was overturned.

“Everybody saw it was a catch, but you can’t take it away,” Williams said. “They took it away from me, but I’m not going to be mad about it. That wasn’t a crucial part of the game. We had more chances than that, but it was a catch. I think it was a catch.”

Two plays later, Bo Nix threw behind a wide-open Harold Joiner and the H-Back was unable to haul in the pass that would have picked up a first down and, potentially, led to a 34-yard touchdown catch on fourth-and-2.

“I threw it behind Harold,” Nix said. “You can’t make mistakes like that. I guess you can say [it was catchable] because it hit him, but if I just put it out in front of him he probably gets down inside the red zone and the outcome of the game changes.”

Said Georgia coach Kirby Smart: “I don’t know if we stopped them, they stopped themselves.”

On the final drive, Williams dropped a pass in the middle of the field between two defenders and Nix was sacked for a five-yard loss on fourth down to end the Tigers’ hopes with 1:39 remaining.

“We had some very inopportune things happen against us that were very tough,” Auburn coach Gus Malzahn said.

The issues were not limited to the final two drives. The Tigers were shut out for the first three quarters for the first time in Malzahn’s head coaching career.

Malzahn also called a timeout with Georgia holding onto the ball with 1:16 remaining in the first half. Georgia led Auburn 7-0 and seemed content with heading to the locker room with the lead and the opening kickoff in the second half.

Then D’Andre Swift ran 16 yards after the Tigers’ timeout to pick up a first down.

“Yeah, yeah, I was thinking, I got a lot of faith in our defense,” Malzahn said. “And you know, you call a timeout. Of course, they went down and scored. Obviously, that didn't work out. But they had the ball coming out the second half. I was thinking we had the chance to get the ball back right there with a possible short field.”

The Bulldogs instead forced Auburn into a pass interference on cornerback Roger McCreary, which was then followed by a 26-yard draw by Swift. Quarterback Jake Fromm, who had missed nine of his last 11 passes, hit his next four, including a 5-yard screen to Brian Herrien to grab a 14-0 lead with 20 seconds remaining in the first half.

Auburn's defense also was charged with two 15-yard personal foul penalties on the Bulldogs' third touchdown drive. Georgia grabbed a 21-0 lead with 13 seconds remaining in the third quarter on the 88-yard drive.

"It felt like they was (sic) against us. I cannot lie about that," Auburn defensive end Marlon Davidson said. "It hurts because I feel like some of the calls should’ve went the other way, for sure. They were getting more calls than we got, but can’t speak on the refs; that’s their decision to make. But, you know, it just hurts when you see games being taken away by refs. You have to beat the refs and the team. That’s very hard to do, no matter what team you are.”

Auburn then came to life, but it was not enough because of time, an overturned call, missed plays and a missed facemask penalty.

"It hurts, especially when, obviously, the whole stadium thought [Williams] was inbounds," Nix said. "That’s football. You have to play with whatever the officials — whatever they say goes, and you learn from it. From grade school all the way up to the NFL, officials are a part of the game. It definitely hurt our drive, you could definitely tell, but we should have executed. We had two more plays after that — third and manageable and then a fourth down."

Auburn (7-3, 4-3 SEC) picked up nearly half of its 329 yards in the fourth quarter (158).

“They just got hot, got on a rhythm,” Smart said. “It’s not like we went conservative. We didn’t call different calls. We were ‘bend-but-don’t-break.’ They hit some plays. They went tempo. I thought Bo (Nix) got a little more confident. We had a couple of busts and when you combine those things, guys get hot. It wasn’t like they didn’t move it earlier, because they moved it earlier, we just had some really big stops. We didn’t have really big stops on the later drives.”

Nix finished 30 of 50 passing for 245 yards and one touchdown to go along with a rushing score (the first given up by Georgia’s defense this season), two sacks and a team-high 42 yards rushing. He was 13 of 20 passing for 123 yards in the fourth quarter.