Georgia May Be Catching Break with Auburn Sitting Best Defensive Player

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The Georgia Bulldogs are trying to move on and turn the page quickly from one of their biggest regular season wins of the entire Kirby Smart era after leaving Tuscaloosa victorious for the first time since 2007.

In the SEC, there are no weeks off though, and now Georgia must get ready for another rivalry game as they try to make it 10 in a row in the Deep South's Oldest Rivalry against the Auburn Tigers. At home, it's been even more success as of late, not losing to Auburn in Sanford Stadium in more than 20 years.

As it turns out, an already heavily favored Bulldogs team is catching a huge break with perhaps the best player on the Tigers roster set to not play. Head coach Alex Golesh confirmed on Monday that preseason First Team All-SEC linebacker Xavier Atkins is not going to play this week amid some rumors of a potential suspension.

Auburn Will Not Play Xavier Atkins This Week

"We’ll keep it in house. That’ll be the only piece of it that I will be addressing. He won’t be available for us this week for the game," Golesh said with reporting from Auburn Sports On3 indicating it's an issue of being late to or missing team meetings.

Atkins already did not start against Southern Miss earlier this season and it seems there have been some problems there, but this is the first time he has been apparently suspended entirely. For Auburn, it's a devastating blow in a game that was already going to be a massive uphill battle.

For Georgia though, this does not change their approach in trying to beat the Tigers for a decade straight, but it may make their defense a little bit less of a headache to deal with.

While it has been a bit of a roller coaster for Auburn, defense is certainly the strength of this team and Atkins at the center of it is the biggest reason why. It's not to say the Tigers cannot win without him, but a game that was already going to be very tough gets a whole lot tougher without him.

If the Tigers are going to have any chance of winning this game, there is going to have to be a major step up from other guys, and while Georgia would never get caught looking ahead, it's tough not to think they have a whole lot better of a chance of making this thing turn ugly with Atkins out.

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