NEW ORLEANS – Coach Kirby Smart didn't point fingers after the game. defeat with a score of 39-34 To Ole Miss in the Sugar Bowl, but a play that may have ultimately doomed Georgia the season should not have happened at all.
Facing fourth-and-2 at its 33, Georgia brought its punting team onto the field first. But with an Ole Miss defender on the ground, the injury stoppage gave Smart a chance to reconsider his decision. He said he put his offense back on the field with the option of either trying to call the Rebels offsides or taking advantage of the game's penalty delay before the punt.
Instead, Georgia turned the ball over in surprise. Gunner Stocktonand Ole Miss linebacker Santarin Perkins came off the edge of the bag.
“We misfired there,” Smart said later. “In such a situation the ball should not have been hit. It's up to us as coaches.”
Ole Miss took over at the Georgia 23 and later scored on two plays to extend the lead to 10 with 9:05 left in the game.
Smart said Georgia analysts actually advised it on fourth down, and after the Bulldogs blew a 10-point lead in the second half, he felt his team had “lost momentum,” but the look from the Ole Miss defense meant the snap wasn't going to happen.
“It's up to them OK,” Ole Miss quarterback. Prince's head said. “It's none of my business. I see the ball, I'm leaving.”
Georgia actually executed a perfect fake punt on fourth down early in the half when Landon Roldan reversed and completed a 16-yard pass. Lawson Luckey for the first down. It also felt like a moment where Georgia had lost momentum and needed a shake-up, Smart said. The drive ended with a field goal.
Overall, Smart said, the well-executed fake punt and the poor play on fourth down were even.
Georgia did recover from the mistake and the Bulldogs tied the game at 34 with less than a minute to play. But completing the 40 yard distance from Trinidad Chambliss set up the game-winning field goal for the Rebels. Georgia's defense allowed 473 yards in the game, the Bulldogs' second-most of the season.
“They've played more games than us, and honestly, that's part of football,” Smart said. “They did more [plays] and outplayed us, outplayed us, outplayed us.”
In October's matchup with Ole Miss, Georgia trailed by 9 points in the fourth quarter, but a dominant final frame led to a 43-35 victory.
On Thursday it was the other way around. The loss snapped Georgia's 75-game winning streak – the longest in the country – when it led early in the fourth quarter.
It was the second year in a row that Georgia's title hopes ended in the Super Dome. Last season's defeat was due to poor offensive performance. Thursday was filled with a lot of mistakes.
However, when it was over, Smart said he had plays he “wished he could go back and play differently” but he didn't hang his head. Instead, he raved about the rowdy Ole Miss crowd—”it felt like a road game,” Chambliss' theatrics under pressure and the defensive game plan of the team Georgia had beaten two months earlier.
“That's what [playoff] “was created to have games like this,” Smart said.
