Auburn LB: 'Bullcrap call' for Georgia to fake a field goal with a big late lead
No. 5 Georgia broke out a fake field goal in the fourth quarter of its win over No. 24 Auburn. And the Tigers weren’t pleased.
Georgia was leading 27-10 with 3:20 to go in the game when kicker Rodrigo Blankenship lined up for a 31-yard field goal attempt with Georgia on Auburn’s 14. The field goal would have put the Bulldogs up 20 points and solidified what was already a three-possession lead.
Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart wanted a four-possession lead. Blankenship ended up throwing a pass out of the formation to tight end Isaac Nauta and it fell incomplete. The play’s lack of success didn’t soften the blow for Auburn’s Deshaun Davis, who said quoting his coach Gus Malzahn that it was a “bullcrap call.”
“I mean, sometimes karma handles things better than you can,” Davis said. “I mean, that’s how they want to be remembered, that’s what they want to be known for, then — it was, in the words of Malzahn, a ‘bullcrap call.’ We shouldn’t be in that situation. I’ll just say that. I’ll revert back to the positives and revert back to us. If we’re not down 17 points, then maybe we don’t see that play. But y’all know the answer to that.”
Neither team scored after the fake and Georgia won 27-10.
Davis does have a point. This is one of college football’s historic rivalries and Georgia had a chance to really rub it into the Tigers. You can see why there would be no love lost between the two groups.
After the game, Smart defended the call with the four-possession reasoning.
“Why not?” Smart asked a reporter who inquired about the play. “Comfortable? What was comfortable?”
“Up 17? Seventeen plus three is what? Twenty. And 20 is a what, three-score game. You lose. So the point differential’s three scores what good does a field goal do you. Doesn’t make it any more. If they don’t get it, they’re backed up. So the thought was they’re going to take three touchdowns to beat us if we get that. If we don’t, three touchdowns is going to beat us either way. So it’s all about point differential and decisions. And we wanted them to start backed up.”
You can’t argue much with that reasoning, can you? And there may have been another thing at play for Georgia too. By trying for a fake in that position, a team like Alabama must prepare for Georgia being willing to fake a field goal in a similar scenario. That could come in handy when the two teams meet in the SEC Championship Game on Dec. 1.
– – – – – – –
Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.
Follow @NickBromberg on Twitter
More from Yahoo Sports:
• Entire teams penalized after wild college football brawl
• Report: Rockets mulling Carmelo’s status
• Davidson loses despite record 789 rushing yards
• Kevin Iole: Is Yair Rodriguez’s KO the greatest ever?
