Kirby Smart and No. 10 Georgia escaped Auburn with a 20-10 win on Saturday after some very questionable calls went their way against their unranked rivals. Tigers coach Hugh Freeze was irate as the first half ended after officials took a touchdown off the board on a very close call at the goal line, and then in the fourth quarter, the Bulldogs coach got away with something we may have never seen before.
Clinging to a three-point lead early in the fourth quarter, Georgia was facing third-and-9 with the play clock winding down. With quarterback Gunner Stockton screaming for the ball, Smart ran down the sideline signaling for a timeout to save Georgia from a delay of game penalty. Officials granted the timeout, but then Smart immediately started to argue that he didn't want a timeout and was just clapping.
Replay confirmed that he was definitely calling timeout, but the officials simply reset the ball and did not charge Georgia a timeout as announcers Sean McDonough and Greg McElroy attempted to make sense of the decision.
Sean McDonough and Greg McElroy try to make sense of Kirby Smart getting off the hook for calling a timeout here. pic.twitter.com/L6Bk43fuvs
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"I've never seen that before," McElroy said, laughing.
McDonough did not find it as funny and asked, "Can they let him get away with this? Because the play clock was at one when they stopped it." After officials gave Smart exactly what he asked for, McDonough continued. "He's signaling for the timeout. The official stopped the play. There's one second on the play clock. So they're going to give him a re-do and not charge him the timeout?"
"You can see him signaling the timeout," added McElroy. "I don't understand. And I'm sure Hugh Freeze is very frustrated by it."
"They're showing the replay now on the screen and that's what Hugh Freeze is pointing to," said an incredulous McDonough. "He's trying to say he was clapping, I'm sorry."
Georgia did not pick up the first down and ended up missing a field goal on the drive—plus Georgia ended the game with an unused timeout—so this non-play didn't really affect the result of the game, but that probably won't make Auburn feel any better about the way the call was handled.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Georgia's Kirby Smart Somehow Tricked Referees Into Giving Him a Free Timeout.
