There’s a lot that went wrong for Georgia in the Rose Bowl. However, the highlight of the night was the doomed fake punt in the 4th quarter, which backfired massively on Georgia. Kirby Smart had no choice but to take the blame for that disastrous call.

Georgia ended up looking like a rookie after the confusion that ensued in the fourth quarter. UGA was 24-27 with 9:31 left on the clock and had to cover a fourth and two. Smart sent the punting team out. But when the Rebels took an injury timeout, he swapped the unit with the offense, causing complete confusion. Center Malachi Toliver snapped the ball early to a surprised Gunner Stockton, who was helpless at that time. It led to him being strip-sacked by Ole Miss’ Suntarine Perkins.

“Yeah, we scr-wed that up a little bit. We had a misfire there,” Smart said after the game. “The ball was not supposed to be snapped in that situation, but that was on us as coaches. It was on me and our guys. It’s not on the players, and Gunnar and those guys did a nice job executing it. But we did feel like we lost momentum at that point.

And, the book says we needed to go for it. That’s probably another way I would like to have gone for it, but we did not execute the situation really well there. It was a situation where it gave us an either-or. We didn’t have to snap it. We could take a delay. We could sit back and see what happened just to take a chance.”

Coincidentally, this was the exact play that Georgia faced as opponents in the last Sugar Bowl, against Notre Dame. Except then, Marcus Freeman got what he wanted out of the play. The Fighting Irish punting squad exchanged with the offense, and the Georgia defense was caught off guard. They instead fell victim to an offside penalty, which earned Notre Dame another set of downs. The situation was practically the same as Georgia was facing against Ole Miss. Notre Dame had 8-ish minutes left in the fourth quarter, facing a fourth and 1.

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That botched-up call saw Suntarine Perkins being able to rush in unblocked in the chaos. OL Monroe Freeling did not move from his position at that time, thinking the snap would’ve come later. As a result of that play, Ole Miss found itself at the Dawgs’ 23-yard line and had to make only two plays to increase the lead with a touchdown.

Surprisingly enough, Smart had nailed that Marcus Freeman-esque fake punt in the third quarter. It was what got the Georgia offense back into the rhythm in the second half. WR Landon Roldan connected with the tight end Lawson Luckie for a 16-yard pass, getting a first down. Smart later claimed that this conversion and the failed fake punt made it all “even.”

However, that was not the only bad call from Georgia. But the next one, which firmly killed the Bulldogs’ hopes for any respite, doesn’t bother Kirby Smart so much.

Kirby Smart sticks by late 3rd-down call

If Georgia had one more drive in the fourth quarter, it’d have had the chance to bow out respectfully with overtime. And they had it. With less than two minutes left on the clock, the Bulldogs were at the Rebels’ 3-yard line. Georgia could have put them under pressure with a touchdown, which would have forced Ole Miss to beat them with another one with just a minute left. Instead, the Dawgs messed up the drive in two downs: one saw them being pushed back 3 yards, and the next was an incompletion from Stockton. Georgia had to settle for a field goal.

Kirby Smart isn’t all that bothered with this one.

“We wanted to score a touchdown,” he said. “We wanted to score to win. The book says, go win the game.

“I just don’t believe in playing for a tie. Had to go for tie because we didn’t complete it. But we knew we were going to leave time on the clock. We felt, like, defensively, we were playing well. To be honest with you, it was a two-point play to win the Sugar Bowl, or at least have a chance to win the Sugar Bowl, because they would have got the ball back. But I feel really good about that. I didn’t want to run it. We ran it on second, thinking we could do it, and they got the look.”

Ole Miss took an even bigger gamble, knowing that they had to break the 34-34 tie by any means. But Trinidad Chambliss threw a 40-yard pass to get the Rebels in scoring contention. Three incompletions followed the play, but Ole Miss remained undeterred. Then, kicker Lucas Caneiro sent the ball flying for 47 yards, earning those crucial 3 points. There were still 6 seconds remaining on the clock.

These critical mistakes ultimately led to Georgia being eliminated from the playoffs once again.