AUBURN, Ala. - When the Georgia Bulldogs got going offensively Saturday during their 21-14 victory over Auburn at Jordan-Hare Stadium, they were quite impressive.
Getting going was the hard part.
The Bulldogs expected a challenge from Auburn's vaunted defense and got one, overcoming nine three-and-out possessions to collect their biggest win of the season. In the fourth quarter, when the Tigers were turning a 21-0 runaway defeat into a one-possession thriller, Georgia's offense ran 12 plays for minus-3 yards.
In fairness, taking a knee three times in the closing seconds resulted in minus-4 yards.
"It's having to do with getting a play to get you started," Georgia coach Kirby Smart said. "When we got started, we did pretty well. We tried to go tempo on them some, and it affected them. Other teams have gone tempo and hurt them, but we actually went tempo and it probably hurt us. We had about three times when we went tempo on first down and had it second-and-10.
"You're trying to be aggressive, you're trying to wear them down and you're trying to change it up. They've got good players, but the end of the day, we've got to get better offensively to get where we need to go."
The Bulldogs never gained more than 3 yards on first down on any of their nine three-and-out series, which included D'Andre Swift's 1-yard carry on their first play from scrimmage.
On Georgia's second possession, however, Jake Fromm opened with a 6-yard completion to Lawrence Cager, which was followed by Brian Herrien's 4-yard carry for a first down. On the ensuing play, Fromm threw deep to Dominick Blaylock for a 51-yard touchdown.
"You've got to pick winners a lot of the time, going here and going there," Fromm said. "I wish we could have scored more points, but we've got two more games and still have the opportunity to get better. We need to get better on offense and really help our defense out."
Swift's 5-yard carry opened Georgia's second touchdown drive late in the first half, which included runs of 16 and 26 yards by the 5-foot-9, 215-pound junior from Philadelphia. He also started Georgia's final scoring possession, a 12-play, 88-yard march that consumed the back half of the third quarter, with runs of of 3 and 9 yards.
Of Georgia's 141 hard-fought rushing yards, Swift accounted for 106 on 17 carries and now has 1,027 yards this season.
"It says everything about the offensive line," Swift said. "They do a great job getting me to the next level, and I just kind of do what I do from there."
Smart said 141 rushing yards is an accomplishment against Auburn, which took added steps to keep Georgia runners confined.
"We want to run the ball outside, but they were doing things to take that away," Smart said. "They had guys as wide as I've ever seen them, and they were not going to let us get out there at times. When we did, we had success, but late in the game we couldn't.
"We'll continue to search and find a way, and it certainly gets easier when we play really well on the perimeter. When we have guys outside making plays, it certainly loosens people up."
In the first half of the fourth quarter, the Bulldogs didn't have their offense or defense working. That resulted in Auburn being the third ranked opponent - Notre Dame and Florida were the first two - to rally from a double-digit deficit this season to make things far more interesting than Smart desires.
Texas A&M (7-3, 4-2 Southeastern Conference), Georgia's foe at 3:30 p.m. Saturday inside Sanford Stadium, joined the national rankings Sunday at No. 24 in the Associated Press poll.
"I'm just looking for consistency," Smart said. "I feel like we've got some good players, and they play better when their backs are against the wall, but that's not what it should be. It should be that you play your best all the time and not just when your backs are against the wall.
"Why do we have to be in that situation in a game? We lost the momentum and weren't able to move the ball, and they got the momentum."
Odds and ends
Cager and offensive linemen Ben Cleveland and Cade Mays are "banged up," said Smart, who likely will update their status during his weekly news conference. The Bulldogs (9-1, 6-1) opened Sunday as 14-point favorites against the Aggies.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524. Follow him on Twitter @DavidSPaschall.