TIGER TALK REVIEW: Georgia Week '25

It’s once again time for TIGER TALK — this time as Auburn prepares to play the Georgia Bulldogs.

WHERE TO LISTEN: You can check here to see which radio station near you may be carrying the show. You also can click that link and get hooked into the stream through Auburn’s web portal.

WHERE TO WATCH: You can check here to see if the Tiger Talk Live Stream is active. I am told everyone can watch the stream on War Eagle + even if you’re not a paid member. I am not sure this is true. I will update this as conditions merit.

THE FIRST SEGMENT

Hugh opens with a nice greeting: “War Eagle, Andy, how are you?”

Hugh goes back talking about this as “Season Two” … which are the games after the first off week. Segment segment of the season.

NOT ANDY asks about them working on themselves last week without looking ahead too much to UGA. “I didn’t think we had earned the right to rest and recover as much as we probably needed to. We had to get work in. We worked Monday through Thursday. I usually don’t do that during the open weeks. There’s just too many things that we as coaches … we have to own the responsibility … there’s an expectation that you perform. I get it. I’ve been in rooms where you didn’t have enough talent. That’s really not the case here any longer. I didn’t think we (gave players the best chance to win against A&M). It was one of the worst experiences, truthfully, of my coaching career offensively. I take it very, very personally.”

ANDY asks self-scouting. “We have great analysts. They understand all that PFF computer world better them (me). If we’re 3×1 weak, we’re 80% right now pass. That’s helpful to know. That’s very telling.”

He says he was surprised a few times during Season One (the first five games) when opponents used a ‘3 Cloud’ defense against Auburn on 1st down. They did that because Auburn had shown some tendencies to take big shots on 1st down in certain areas of the field. “It’s not a good defense to run on 1st-and-10, but it’s a great defense to call if you think someone is fixin’ to take a shot on you.”

(3 Cloud is a version of Cover-3 defense with two hard corners.)

THE SECOND SEGMENT

NOT ANDY says Auburn is playing Georgia this weekend. Georgia is good. “We’ve proven that we can play with the Top 10 teams in the country now. Now we get to come home to Jordan-Hare. I know that’s a huge advantage for us. I can’t wait to see our kids compete.”

ANDY says both defenses are terrific. He thinks it’ll be a slugfest. “You watch them against … some of the games they’ve played … you watch the Tennessee game and you’re baffled by how many points were scored. They made the plays to win it. The truer test … the second half of the Bama game, they were pretty dominant. They are one of the best staffs, teams about making adjustments.”

On the Georgia offense: “They’re similar to A&M … using their tight ends.”

HERB is in the house. He has a question. He’d like to know more about the ‘possession offenses.’ Will that be a trend? “I used to be tempo, tempo, tempo all the time. After a night like we had at A&M, I wonder if I should go back to that. I know that there’s great value in complementary football and making sure your defense is not having to defend offenses long periods of time.”

“I felt like I just didn’t get the job done for our kids. If you can control the clock and keep your defense playing those 65 or less snaps per game, your chances of winning are going up.”

TEDDY/TEDDI/TEDDYE is in the house. She wants to know about preparing the defense for UGA. “We’ll take aggression every time … with discipline. Eye discipline. Their eyes have to be in the right spot. Your eyes can’t be in the backfield if you have no responsibility in the backfield. Your eyes need to be locked on your key and what you’re doing.”

(Hugh takes time to compliment the many young players who are important contributors on defense.)

THE THIRD SEGMENT

ANDY wants to know about turnovers and if it’s tempting to make Jackson Arnold throw the ball into riskier situations? “Offensively, you couldn’t ask for … here’s the positive first. Jackson not turning the ball over has given us a chance to win every game. On the other hand, we’re having a lot of sacks where I think we have playmakers that in 1-on-1 have a real chance to make plays … if we’re maybe playing less out of … I don’t know that it’s fear … more free. We need him to play more free. And we need to hold up (blocking) a little longer. Some of that goes back to saying out of 3rd-and-Long. There are times when I do think Jackson can be more aggressive. I just want him to have the confidence to do that.”

BUSTER is in the house. He wants to know about how big a night game in this series is. “I do agree with you. I don’t have a ton of what I’d consider real friends in the coaching world, particularly in this conference. I really have two, true what I’d consider to be friends that I’d talk to about everything. One is Eliah (Drinkwitz). One is Kirby.”

“Kirby knows very well that a Saturday night in Jordan-Hare is no easy task. It’s going to be a great fight.”

DREW/DRU is in the house. He wants to put the rivalry back into this series. (This devolves into a conversation about Bruce Pearl and I have no idea why.)

THE FINAL SEGMENT

ANDY asks about linebacker Xavier Atkins. “It showed up immediately when he got here in January. Everything was 100 miles per hour, full speed. His passion for the game is as high as any I’ve coached. I wish his passion for school and everything else was like that.  (GUFFAWS ALL AROUND) He’s absolutely crazy about the game of football.”

NOT ANDY asks about linebacker Elijah Melendez. “I just continue to talk about those young kids … and Elijah is one of those. You’ve got those two and (Bruce) Deas rotating there. Great kid. He does everything you want as a program-builder. Just a great human being, too, and is going to be an excellent player.”

ANDY asks for a scouting report on UGA’s offense. “I really compare them a lot to A&M. Very similar run games. Very similar pass games. I do think Georgia is better at receiver than they’ve been in the past few years. (Gunner) Stockton is playing at a really high level, too. It’s a tall task.”

ANDY asks about moving the Baylor game to Atlanta, thereby losing a home game. “I hope people hear me on this. I’m not in all those meetings and things, but we live in a day and time where doing things that help our program with the NIL world are very vital and important. It’s here. It’s part of it. Our belief is that Auburn fans will make Atlanta a home game … and at the same time benefit our kids. Those are not easy decisions to have to make. When you know if you play this game here … that in our coffer is going to come X dollars to build your roster that helps you win games, it’s really difficult to say no to that.”

“The offer that was made to us to do that was significant in putting money back into our NIL world where our kids are supported. It will help in recruiting.”

NOT ANDY asks about what Hugh wants to see from practice this week. “We got great work in yesterday. They’re going to be ready to go. It’s not executing the plan and doing it with great discipline and technique and staying ahead of the chains. We’ve got to stay ahead of the chains and continue to win on third down on defense.”

ANDY asks how they will run the ball effectively. “We averaged almost 4 yards (per carry) at A&M. We just couldn’t commit to  it because of all the down and distances — it felt like anyway. I probably let us down some in not committing to it more. I’m confident we can do that.”

Hugh drops a confident “WAR EAGLE” to close.

BE GOOD. BE YOU.

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