A satirical, occasionally truthful, historical look at Georgia vs. Auburn …

Auburn first played Georgia on February 20, 1892 at Atlanta’s Piedmont Park. Auburn claimed a 10-0 victory, but the game result is under protest to this day.

Georgia provided evidence that the entire 1892 Auburn team consisted of players kicked out of other schools for stealing laptops or stuff from their dorm neighbors. 

Once they reached The Plains, those players continued to steal stuff from their own teammates at the college’s athletic residential barn.

The above statement might not be completely accurate. Please run it past the fact-checking source of your choice and report back to us what they conclude.

Lewis Grizzard grew up in Moreland, Georgia, 66.2 miles from Auburn, Alabama and 114 miles from Athens. Georgia, not Greece. Yet Lewis never wavered on his collegiate loyalty. He was a UGA boy who grew to become a UGA man.

When in high school in the early 1960s, Lewis attended an Auburn fraternity party. Whether he was invited or just crashed it no one can remember. 

Lewis struck up a promising romance with a sorority girl clearly 2 or 3 years older than Lewis. Perhaps his favorite pickup line, “Do you think pro wrestling is real?” is what melted her heart.

Yet Lewis quickly got overserved or overserved himself on vodkas and Co-Colas to the point of illness. An Auburn fraternity guy led Lewis to a restroom and draped cold towels over his neck while he “prayed to the porcelain gods.” 

The guy told poor Lewis he had to forget about the coed, as by that point Lewis was green and smelled far too bad for any mouthwash or cologne to remedy. Lewis later thanked that nameless guy in a column for perhaps saving his life.

Lewis often said that Georgia playing Auburn in football is “like watching two brothers in a fight.”

Some fans of both schools indeed feel that way. Other fans of both schools truly detest the other school. Sadly, some people also detest their own brothers. This is all complicated.

After UGA’s 1980 national championship, Auburn recruited Vince Dooley to come coach at Auburn, his alma mater. Vince came close to accepting but ultimately declined. He graciously recommended his friend Pat Dye for the job. Auburn indeed hired Dye, a UGA alum.

A relieved Lewis Grizzard said of Vince’s decision, “Some people won’t even go to Auburn for a million dollars.”

The Wall Street Journal once named the Auburn-Georgia rivalry to be the “dirtiest in college football”. 

On a frigid November 16, 1986 night Georgia played Auburn in one of the cleanest college football games ever. That came to be known as, “The Game Between The Hoses.” The unranked 7-2 Bulldogs upset the 8-1 8th-ranked Tigers 20-16. 

Auburn turned water hoses on UGA fans who stormed the field. They later turned those hoses on UGA fans in the stands.

Lewis was there and got soaked.

Pat Dye said UGA fans needed a bath. Auburn fans said, “Nothing smells worse than a wet Dawg.”

Auburn’s Assistant Athletic Director Kermit Perry is a 1956 UGA grad now living in Newnan, Georgia, just north of Moreland. He ordered that the water hoses be turned on UGA fans. Yet he was Lewis Grizzard’s friend. 

Lewis once wrote that Auburn’s legendary Athletic Director David Housel was his best friend at the school. Lewis was said to have met and liked Shug Jordan. Lewis was definitely Pat Dye’s friend. 

An Auburn alumni group invited Lewis to speak in early 1987. He opened with, “It is a lot dryer today than the last time I was here.”

Yet for Lewis, there were no sacred cows.

A sampling of his Auburn jabs: 

“Where do pigs buy underwear? Frederick’s of Auburn.”

“What do they yell when Auburn cheerleaders take the field? How ’bout them dogs?!”

“Auburn is nothing more than Clemson without the lake.”

One Auburn-Georgia game was on national TV. At halftime, Uga was shown to the entire United States doing what dogs do, licking his privates. Auburn fan Earl said to another, “I sure wish I could do that.” “His buddy Bubba replied, “Earl, that dog would bite you!”

(Grizzard fans, Lewis told that joke a lot of different ways over the years. Bubba and Earl were sometimes Dawg fans as well.)

Lewis might call Auburn what many do, “The school of second chances.” 

Or third or fourth chances. Auburn’s basketball coach Bruce Pearl is a perfect current example. But this is about football. 

In 2010, Auburn took Cam Newton after he got kicked out of Florida for stealing a laptop. Dawgs fans know that it is not easy to get kicked out of Florida, but Cam managed to do it. 

Newton spent a year in hiding playing football at Blinn College in Texas. He is said to have taken a “Do Not Steal” course but never went to class.

In 2012 Auburn took Nick Marshall. In 2011 Marshall and 2 teammates were dismissed from the Georgia team for stealing from teammates. Dawgs fans know that it is very easy to get kicked off of any Georgia team. 

Marshall spent a year in hiding playing football at Garden City Community College in Kansas. He is said to have taken a “Do Not Steal” course but never went to class.

Statements about courses Newton and Marshall took might not be completely accurate. Please run it past the fact-checking source of your choice and report back to us what they conclude.

Back to Marshall. He grew up in Georgia and in 2014 on his way home from Auburn got pulled over in Reynolds, Georgia for a tinted window violation. 

It has been scrubbed from the internet to a degree, but a vehicle search revealed that Marshall had less than one ounce of pot in his car. He was given a citation for the tinted window and misdemeanor pot possession and allowed to drive on. 

By this time Marshall was a Heisman Trophy candidate, which may have helped him with law enforcement even in a rival state. 

In Athens, players on Georgia teams have been arrested for spitting on the sidewalk. Mild exaggeration. Certainly driving on a suspended license or similar offense that would likely be swept under the rug on many campuses. 

If a UGA player signed and sold a jersey, the local newspapers made it the front-page headline.

Think 2010 and UGA’s AJ Green. Four-game suspension for selling his 2009 Independence Bowl jersey for $1,000. Appeals were upheld by the NCAA Committee on Student-Athlete Reinstatement.

During Green’s suspension, there were widespread reports of other college football players having sold volumes of stuff, with listings on auction websites to prove it. Yet no NCAA sanctions for those athletes or headlines about them.

Before he left us in 1994 Lewis insisted: 

“Georgia does not give our players any special favors while they are in school. No cash, cars or anything besides free food and free education if they earned a scholarship. But when their eligibility runs out they each get a free 7-11.” 

Circa 2010 my two preteen sons and I tailgated with my Auburn ex-wife and our Florida Redneck Riviera Auburn friends at an Auburn weekend versus South Carolina. The hosts invited our family of four to lodge in their smallish one head a/k/a toilet RV with them. They were two adults and another preteen boy.

We thought that to be way too cozy and declined as politely as we could. That meant a post-game miserable traffic drive to the nearest short notice available motel room 35 miles east in Columbus, Georgia. We hoped and prayed for a clean motel toilet and a hot shower with decent water pressure. We got both.

Before the game, our hosts arranged for a responsible adult sitter to stay with the three boys, as we had only four tickets. After the Auburn victory, the sitter had bad news. One or both of my sons had vomited hot dogs, hamburgers, popcorn, cotton candy and a technicolor mix of condiments all over the RV master bed. 

My boys did not confess it, as they went back outside to play and perhaps refill their empty stomachs. By the time the sitter noticed, it had all soaked through the bed linens deep into the mattress. So help me the colorful mix looked orange and blue. It was the first and only time I thought those colors were anything but ugly. In fact, they appeared most attractive that evening.

It was one of the proudest nights of my life, yet  I could share that with no one until days later. Upon return to our Redneck Riviera Florida home, I gave my two guys a UGA scholarship while my not-yet ex-wife wasn’t looking. To their credit, neither of my sons like Auburn despite their fond memories of RV bed hurling. 

“The South’s Oldest Rivalry” is North Carolina vs Virginia. SEC fans might say, ”Sure. Whatever.” That game fires up a total of about three football fans. 

Saturday will mark the continuation of “The Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry.” Georgia has won 13 of the past 16 games, including the past 4. In 2020, UGA beat Auburn 27-6 in their first October game since 1936. 

Kirby Smart does not use locker room material, nor does he seem to need it. He recently said, “We don’t practice to beat anybody. We practice to beat everybody.” 

Maybe UGA players will see this and learn about Auburn indignities done to our Dawgs over the decades. We beat Clemson and might have broken Clemson’s spirit in Game 1 of 2021. And Auburn is nothing but Clemson without the lake.

This writer predicted a 28-9 Dawgs victory over the Hawgs beginning at noon last Saturday, confident that Arkansas would not reach the end zone. Did they ever even reach the red zone?

This writer predicts an even more lopsided victory over Auburn on The Plains beginning at 3:30 p.m. Eastern this Saturday.

After Auburn loses to Georgia, they must go to Arkansas on Oct. 16 and lose to the Hawgs. Let’s just say Auburn gets caught looking past Georgia to that game the following Saturday.

We can say anything we want. The big, strong, fast, smart and cohesive Dawgs will feast on Tiger meat Saturday afternoon. Or War Eagle meat. Or Plainsmen meat. 

Lewis Grizzard might say: 

“It would help a lot if Auburn or AllBarn would figure out what they call themselves or what they are. Bless their hearts.”