Kirby Smart on 4th down that backfired: 'We screwed that up a little bit'

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NEW ORLEANS – Kirby Smart was asked two days before Georgia football’s College Football Playoff quarterfinal about his propensity to use gadget plays, to be willing to take risks.

“There’s not a coach in the country that’s not trying to gain a competitive advantage,” he said. “There are things you work on, try to highlight maybe your kids’ strengths, maybe try to highlight their weaknesses. But they’re only good if they work. It could be the greatest idea in the world, but if it doesn’t work, it wasn’t very smart. And that’s just roll of the dice, I guess.”

Third-seed Georgia rolled the dice with its season on the line in the fourth quarter on Thursday night, Jan. 1, when it went for it in its own territory on a fourth-and-2 at its own 33. It backfired in a 39-34 loss to No. 6 Ole Miss in a CFP quarterfinal in the Sugar Bowl.

With Ole Miss up 27-24, Gunner Stockton was sacked by Suntaire Perkins for a 10-yard loss with 9:31 to go.

Two plays later, Trinidad Chambliss hit Harrison Wallace for a 13-yard touchdown pass.

Smart was asked about the fourth-down call when the offense came back on the field after the punt team ran off.

“We screwed that up a little bit,” he 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 times. 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. And Gunner and those guys did a nice job executing it.”

Smart said coaches felt like the team had lost momentum by that point.

“And the book says we needed to go for it,” he said. “There’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, see what happened, just to take a chance.”

Tight end Oscar Delp, who was in on the play when center Malachi Toliver snapped the ball to quarterback Gunner Stockton, called it “just miscommunication.”

“It’s not anyone’s fault. It’s not Malachi’s fault, it’s not Gunner’s fault,” Delp said. “We’re not all on the same page and we need to get better at those things.”

Georgia rallied to tie the game at 34, but never went ahead.

Ole Miss pulled out the win after a 47-yard field goal with 6 seconds to play and added a safety.

Georgia went 2-of-3 on fourth downs in the game.

On a fourth-and-5 at the Georgia 30 in the third quarter and Georgia’s lead down to 21-19, freshman receiver Landon Roldan from North Oconee took a lateral and hit tight end Lawson Luckie on the 16-yard gain.

“We felt like we could get momentum back with that play, and we felt like it was there, and the kids did a great job executing it,” Smart said.

That led to a 37-yard-field goal with 30 seconds to go in the quarter.

“I just tried to go in there and execute and do my job,” Roldan said. “Whatever the team needs and whatever the coach’s ask. Just going out there and executing that play, I guess it worked out pretty well.”

Smart didn’t sound like the fourth down that resulted in the sack and fumble will linger for him for too long.

“I mean, that’s football,” Smart said. “We made a bunch of plays. You can take that and the fake punt and call it even. That kept the possession alive. We’ve made a lot of plays this year in those critical moments where we had guys jump offsides on disciplined teams. I think back to — I think it was Texas at home, they jumped offsides and we got a free play off of that. It’s been really huge. We’ve gained more possessions than probably anybody in the country by what we’ve done being aggressive and trying to do things that required discipline and execution. We just didn’t execute that one.”

A delay of game could have left it to Brett Thorson’s leg.

“I mean, at worst there we would have gotten a delay and given our punter, who’s one of the best punters in the country, 5 yards to give up or call time-out,” he said. “But we didn’t execute, so in hindsight, it didn’t work. But that did not cost us the game, let me assure you, because we came back, scored, kicked another one, got the game tied, had a chance to win it, called a good play for the coverage they were in, and we didn’t make the play. The kid knocked the ball down on Oscar (Delp), and then — we had third-and-5. We’re going to have a chance to get the ball back and maybe win the two-minute, and they made a good throw and catch.”

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: What Kirby Smart said about ill-fated fourth down in Georgia CFP loss

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