NEW ORLEANS — An imperfect team in search of a perfect ending, Georgia met its end Thursday. The Bulldogs’ own mistakes and a formidable opponent made for a combination that they could not overcome.
Coach Kirby Smart’s team played a disastrous minute in the game’s midpoint and then could not catch Notre Dame in the final two quarters at the Sugar Bowl, postponed one day because of Wednesday’s horrific terrorist attack on Bourbon Street. Georgia deserved its result, a 23-10 loss to the Fighting Irish in a College Football Playoff quarterfinal.
A team that fought injuries, a withering schedule and its own inconsistencies, the Bulldogs will have to be satisfied with a season that would be unprecedented for almost any other program in the country — an SEC championship, the No. 2 seed in the CFP and an 11-3 record.
After the game, Smart said he won’t question a decision he made in the final minute of the first half that led to a pivotal touchdown for Notre Dame. Many Georgia fans will.
It happened when the Bulldogs started a drive with 39 seconds left in the half on their 25-yard line after a Notre Dame field goal gave the Irish a 6-3 lead. Smart made the aggressive call to try to ride quarterback Gunner Stockton’s arm to get into field-goal range. This despite the fact that Stockton was making his first career start and the offense hadn’t done much in the half to demonstrate it was capable of the consistent output necessary to get into scoring range quickly.
It immediately backfired. On a first-down pass play from the pocket, left tackle Monroe Freeling couldn’t stay in front of Notre Dame defensive end R.J. Oben, who forced a fumble out of Stockton that the Irish recovered on the Georgia 13.
On the next play, Notre Dame quarterback Riley Leonard connected with receiver Beaux Collins for a touchdown that, with the extra point, lifted the Fighting Irish lead to 13-3.
“Typically when you’re down, you need every possession you can have,” said Smart, whose team was down at that point by a field goal. “And we made a decision that we were going to be aggressive and we were going to try to go two-minute (drill). And that’s what everything says you should do. You can’t give up possessions when you’re trailing.”
That was calamity enough. But on the kickoff to start the second half, Notre Dame returner Jayden Harrison slalomed through the Georgia coverage team for a 98-yard return for a touchdown.
It was a breakdown of a particularly trustworthy unit. The longest kickoff return permitted by the Bulldogs this season until Thursday was 29 yards. The last time a Georgia opponent returned a kickoff for a touchdown was 2018 (Georgia Tech’s Juanyeh Thomas).
“We had leverage on the ball, and we had somebody that couldn’t get him on the ground,” Smart said. “And that’s what football is. It’s fundamentals and tackling. We tackle him there, then we got a chance to stop them.”
Notre Dame led 6-3 with 39 seconds left in the first half. Fifteen seconds into the third quarter, the lead was 20-3. Georgia kept up the chase — chopping wood, in its parlance — but the Bulldogs were not going to catch the Fighting Irish on this day.
The Bulldogs were vastly outplayed in the middle eight — the last four minutes of the first half and the first four of the second — a section of the game that Smart has called one of the more critical in a game.
Georgia fell short elsewhere, too. With his team in the red zone in the first quarter, running back Travis Etienne lost a fumble, denying the Bulldogs a chance at points.
The Bulldogs had trouble keeping pressure off Stockton, who was sacked four times. The mistakes weren’t even limited to the field. On a 67-yard pass play from Stockton to wide receiver Arian Smith in the second quarter that put the ball on Notre Dame’s 11-yard line, walk-on Parker Jones inadvertently got in the way of an official following the play by barely being in the white area on the sideline, which is restricted to officials and on-field players. It was a tough-luck moment for Jones. On the same play, Smart himself was in the white area.
It drew a penalty and pushed Georgia back to the 26. The Bulldogs settled for a field goal that gave them a 3-0 lead.
Smart said that “I call those things undisciplined, self-imposed wounds that you lose momentum on.”
Georgia’s defense largely did its job, limiting Notre Dame’s offense to 16 points and 244 yards, the season yardage low for the Irish and about 175 yards below its average.
But the Bulldogs committed a costly offside penalty on a fourth-and-1 in the fourth quarter when Notre Dame brought its entire punt team off the field and replaced it with the offense in an attempt to do exactly that.
There was about 7:20 remaining in the game when Jalon Walker jumped offside on that play. Georgia was down 23-10. Officials did miss an apparent false start on Notre Dame on the same play.
When the Bulldogs finally got the ball back, there was 1:49 left.
The NCAA football rules committee co-chairman, Smart argued the penalty on the field. He explained after the game that he had been told by the SEC head of officials after UGA tried it in 2017 that it’s not within the rules to run all 11 players off and bring in 11 new players.
Answering a postgame query from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on X, formerly Twitter, former NFL referee and Big East and American Athletic Conference officiating coordinator Terry McAulay said that Smart’s understanding was incorrect and that, “One would think the Chairman of the Rules Committee would know the rule.” Ouch.
Georgia had a chance to win it all. But with this team, with a newbie starting quarterback, lacking the star power of its championship predecessors and up against an excellent opponent, it was going to take a better performance than the Bulldogs gave. It fell in line with the season.
Georgia could afford to allow 170 rushing yards to Kentucky, throw three interceptions against Florida or trail Tech 17-0 at halftime because it was better than those teams. It didn’t have that margin against the Irish, who made the Bulldogs pay.
“Notre Dame played well,” Smart said. “We didn’t play great.”
It was that simple.
