Auburn vs Georgia known as Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry.

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UGA has won 16 of the last 19 matchups.

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Auburn and Georgia need to jointly announce that we’re changing the name to “The South’s Oldest Rivalry.”

Currently North Carolina vs Virginia claims this moniker, but it rightly belongs to Auburn vs Georgia.

Auburn and Georgia first played on February 20, 1892. UNC and Virginia first played on October 22, 1892. So AU-UGA is older.

Both rivalries have 128 meetings. Auburn vs Georgia did not play in 1943 due to WW2 so UNC-UVA took a one-meeting lead. This allowed them to get away with taking the “South’s Oldest Rivalry” name despite it not being older.

But then in 2017, Auburn and Georgia played a second time in the SEC Title Game which caught us back up.

Now that the number of meetings is equal and the fact we did in fact play sooner, we need to lay claim to this rightful name.

Back in 2015 this series was tied at 55 wins a piece. UGA has won the majority recently so has opened up an 8 game lead in the series.

A few years before that while Auburn still held the series lead, the points scored by each team was actually tied.

Historically it's a very close rivalry. It's only opened up a little with UGA dominating the last decade.

It's also odd in that in the early days of the rivalry it got played in a lot of different locations. In addition to Auburn and Athens, games have been played in Atlanta (both SECCG and regular season), Columbus, Montgomery, Macon and Savannah.

Some stats:

Georgia leads the series 64-56-8

# of games by location:
39- Columbus, GA
34- Athens, GA
33- Auburn, AL
14- Atlanta, GA
4- Macon, GA
2- Montgomery, AL
2- Savannah, GA

Some History of the Swings of Power:

Auburn won the first game in 1892 and basically held a lead in the series most every year up through the 32nd meeting in 1927. In 1916, Auburn held a 6-game lead in the series which was its peak lead.

Georgia took its first lead in the series in 1928 and eventually took an 8-game lead in 1952. That was the year Shug Jordan was hired at Auburn. Auburn clawed its way back in the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s to finally regain the series lead in 1988.

Auburn would eventually build a 5-game lead in the series in 2005. But since then, Georgia has dominated, winning 16 of the last 19 to take an 8-game lead.

In total, Georgia has held the series lead for 57 seasons compared to Auburn’s 54.

This has always been a back-and-forth kind of series buts it’s shifts in power have come in long, multi-decade periods.

The series can really be boiled down to 4 time periods:

1892-1919: Auburn dominated 13-7-4
1920-1952: Georgia dominated 22-8-2
1953-2005: Auburn dominated 30-17-2
2006-2023: Georgia dominated 16-3

The previous periods lasted 24, 32, and 49 seasons. This current stretch is now going into Year 20. History says that within a few years, Auburn will regain power and go on a slow grind of evening things back out. We can only hope.

For those who love history, check out this synopsis of the 1899 game, written back in 2013 by the historian, WarEagle Reader on his blog.

LINK

Basically one of the games counted today as a tie should have been an Auburn win but was wiped away due to the sun beginning to go down. Despite Auburn leading and holding possession of the ball with only seconds to play, the game was called a forfeit due to darkness and the points were wiped away resulting in a 0-0 tie.

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Auburn vs Georgia known as Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry.

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Can’t think of this series without Herschel & Bo coming to mind.

Seemed to be even until that crazy game in 2006.