Auburn report card: Grading the Tigers' 31-13 loss to Georgia

Auburn suffered its fourth loss in five games against Georgia Saturday , but it was the first time the Tigers looked like the inferior team.

They lost 31-13 and Georgia had firm control of the game throughout. Auburn was competitive and had chances to stay in the game, but small mistakes and missed opportunities kept the Tigers from having a real chance at winning.

It wasn't all bad, but it wasn't nearly good enough to beat a team of Georgia's caliber.

Here's how we graded Auburn's performance:

Grade: C- Auburn had its first turnover-free game of the season Saturday, which is an improvement for this offense. It also only scored 13 points, making it hard to give the unit a better grade.

The offense found ways to move the ball at times, particularly through the run game. Jarquez Hunter ran for 91 yards and averaged seven yards per rush, but only had 13 carries.

His lack of carries this week and in other games is a little surprising, and Hunter's frustration could be sensed after the game.

"Early in the game we had a couple big runs and then later in the game we had a couple of big runs against them," Hunter said. "I mean we could have ran the ball all day. We just had to execute in some areas."

Through the air, Auburn was good, but not great. Payton Thorne had 200 yards on 16-of-27 passing with no touchdowns, but no turnovers. He did have a miscue on a fourth-and-one to start the fourth quarter, opting to run the ball himself rather than giving Hunter the ball on what Hugh Freeze said was a designed hand off.

Auburn also had two drives that made it inside the Georgia 10-yard line, but both ended in field goals. Against Georgia, Auburn needed more, and the offense wasn't good enough to hang around late into the game.

Grade: C- Similar to the offense, the defense was good at times, but never consistently good enough to keep Auburn in the game.

Holding Georgia under 400 yards of total offense is not a bad day. The two third-down sacks by Keldric Faulk were probably the unit's most impressive moments of the game.

As the game went on, though, Georgia seemed to wear down Auburn's defense. That's not all the defense's fault, as Auburn's offense getting stopped on fourth down gave Georgia good starting field position on its two fourth-quarter scoring drives.

Auburn also had trouble making Georgia quarterback Carson Beck uncomfortable. Despite the two sacks, Beck finished with a 79% completion percentage and was 20-for-20 on throws of 14 yards or less. That won't win you games against a well-oiled machine like Georgia.

Special Teams Grade: B- Auburn wasn't bad on special teams, but a few mistakes keep this grade from being any higher.

Towns McGough was 2-for-3 on field goals, his one miss being a blocked 54-yard attempt. Georgia made a nice play on the block, and a 54-yard attempt would've been a big ask even with good protection.

Jeremiah Cobb had a nice kick return for 29 yards early in the game, but penalties during returns continue to be a theme for Auburn's special teams.

Overall, special teams didn't do anything to swing the game one way or another, but it still wasn't perfect.

Grade: C- Auburn put together a decent gameplan against Georgia, but it seemed to be missing that extra bit of creativity and aggressiveness needed to beat a team like Georgia.

The Tigers did a lot of what they normally do on both sides of the ball, but it was always going to take an abnormal performance for this team to win.

For example, Auburn twice had the ball inside Georgia's 10-yard line, but both drives resulted in field goals. Auburn needed seven and eight yards respectively on those two fourth downs, but Freeze said after the game that he only considered going for it on one of them.

That was when Auburn was already down 28-10 in the fourth quarter, and even a touchdown in that situation would've likely been too little, too late.

There was nothing that staff did horribly against Georgia, but it feels like there could've been more.

Grade: C- Auburn was average against Georgia.

It was better than many of the Tigers' recent performances in Athens, but being average isn't enough to beat top five teams. There were positives that this mostly young team can build on, but with four losses in six games, that's not what anyone in the program is interested in anymore.

Eventually, there needs to be results. Those results were never expected against Georgia, but as Auburn enters its bye week at the halfway point of the season, it hopes it can start turning those small positives from each game into wins.