Kirby Smart Takes Accountability for Failed Fourth Down Play vs. Ole Miss

Smart admitted the ball wasn't supposed to be snapped on a fourth-down play deep in Georgia's territory in the fourth quarter.

Smart's Bulldogs lost in the Sugar Bowl for the second straight year. / Stephen Lew-Imagn Images

Georgia coach Kirby Smart admitted, while speaking to reporters after the Bulldogs' 39-34 loss to Ole Miss in the College Football Playoff quarterfinal, that the ball wasn't supposed to be snapped on a play that changed the course of his program's ultimate defeat at the hands of the Rebels.

Down 27-24 and facing a fourth-and-2 from its own 33-yard line with 9:31 remaining in the fourth quarter, the Bulldogs initially sent the punting unit out onto the field. But given some time to mull the decision due to an injured Rebels player, Smart opted to send the offense onto the field—and the ensuing play was disastrous. Georgia quarterback Gunnar Stockton was sacked instantly by Ole Miss linebacker Suntarine Perkins, who was unblocked.

Ole Miss then took over inside the Bulldogs' 30-yard line and two plays later, scored a touchdown to extend its lead to 34-24.

As it turns out, Georgia's fourth-down play shouldn't have even happened.

“Yeah, we screwed that up a little bit,” Smart said. “We had a misfire there. It was a change up from the look we had done twice and we knew teams were going to sit back and not honor us because we had not snapped it on those plays in two different locations, two different time and 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.”

Smart went on to explain that Georgia's analytics actually recommended that the team go for it in that situation.

“And Gunnar and those guys did a nice job executing it, but we did feel like we had lost momentum at that point. And the book says we needed to go for it. Probably another way I would have liked 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.”

For the second straight year, Smart's Bulldogs, after securing a first-round bye in the 12-team College Football Playoff, have bowed out in the Sugar Bowl.

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