Georgia wins 2017 SEC Championship over Auburn, 28-7: 3 takeaways

The No. 6 Georgia Bulldogs beat the No. 2 Auburn Tigers to win the 2017 SEC Championship, 28-7. Here are the three biggest takeaways from the game.

For the first time since 2005, the Georgia Bulldogs have won the SEC Championship. They avenged their Week 11 road loss to the cross-divisional rival Auburn Tigers by winning 28-7 on Saturday afternoon at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.

No. 6 Georgia improves to 12-1 on the year and has punched its ticket to the fourth annual College Football Playoff. For No. 2 Auburn, the Tigers fall to 10-3 on the season. They have no shot of making the playoff now and it remains to be seen if they get a New Year’s Six bowl game to play in. With the way they’ve played up until this game, they should.

Here are the three biggest takeaways from the 2017 SEC Championship Game.

Jake Fromm carved up Auburn out-breaking routes all afternoon. Though the defense was the story in this game for Georgia, you had to like what you saw out of true freshman quarterback Jake Fromm for the Dawgs. He clearly learned from his mistakes down on The Plains a few weeks ago. This was his best game as Georgia’s starter.

Fromm completed 16 of 22 passes for 183 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. He outplayed Auburn signal caller Jarrett Stidham throughout the ball game once Stidham fell out of rhythm in the second half.

Where Fromm was lethal was on the out-breaking routes. He was able to spray the ball around to guys like Terry Godwin and Mecole Hardman all afternoon. Fromm is still a young player, but you can see his progression as a passer heading into the College Football Playoff and into his true sophomore season in 2018.

Auburn couldn’t carry on with Kerryon Johnson. It would have taken a great performance out of Auburn’s bell-cow back Kerryon Johnson to beat Georgia twice in a month. Unfortunately, he was too banged up to carry the offensive load due to a bum shoulder. Stidham had his issues with the constant Georgia pass rush all afternoon. Simply put, Auburn ran out of gas.

Johnson only had 13 carries for 44 yards on the day. His fumble in the second half would set up a Fromm to Godwin touchdown early in the fourth quarter. It was too much of a burden for the Auburn star back to carry. Had he been healthy it would have been a closer game for sure.

After Stidham led Auburn down the field for a touchdown on its first drive of the day, the Tigers didn’t score the rest of the game. They sure gave up some points, fumbling the ball twice within field goal range and having a Daniel Carlson field goal block. Once Johnson was neutralized, that was it for the Auburn offense.

The Dawgs are on top in the SEC and maybe get the No. 1 overall seed? So we now know that the Bulldogs are going to the College Football Playoff. With two games left in the ACC and Big Ten Championships, the only two teams that have certainly punched their tickets are Georgia and the Big 12 Champion Oklahoma Sooners.

Now that Georgia has certainly made the playoff, what seed will the Dawgs be? One could argue that they have earned the right to be No. 1. They just avenged their only loss of the season and did so to win their conference championship.

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Their résumé is better than Oklahoma’s, Clemson’s, Miami’s, Ohio State’s and Wisconsin’s. If Georgia does get the No. 1 seed, the Dawgs will presumably play the No. 4 seed in the Sugar Bowl at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome down in New Orleans. Congratulations, Dawg Nation! It’s been a long time coming. Have fun in the playoff.