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Georgia Bulldogs head coach Kirby Smart reacts to action during his team’s win over the Texas Longhorns on Saturday. (Jeffrey Vest/Getty Images)
AUSTIN, Texas — Kirby Smart played the doubter card here Saturday night.
He didn’t want to play the doubter card. In fact, during his news conference after No. 5 Georgia took down No. 1 Texas, 30-15, Smart actually said that he doesn’t play into the doubters and doesn’t care about the doubters while literally playing the doubter card.
Did you all watch the shows on ESPN and other networks this week, he asked media members. Did you see what they said about his Bulldogs?
He didn’t watch the shows (he was in meetings, he says), but his friends and colleagues did. There were so many people who doubted that Georgia would beat Texas that Smart says he received “8,000 texts” about the doubters.
“Everybody doubted us,” he said.
But on this night, at a burnt-orange blanketed Darrell K Royal Stadium, there were more than just doubters. There was the single-most unusual and perhaps unprecedented reversal of a penalty in recent college football memory — right here in a top-five duel on national television.
Follow me closely now. In the third quarter, with Georgia up 23-8, officials reversed a pass interference call against Texas that had negated a Longhorns interception, after conferring with one another, while the game was paused for stadium staff members to pick up trash that students — angry at the original call — tossed on the field.
Has this happened before? When factoring in the hundreds of thousands of games played over the course of multiple college divisions, sure, somewhere, probably. In a game of this magnitude? On a stage like this? In this conference? No way.
The call was significant to the game, too. Instead of Georgia having ball possession with a first…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/amid-officiating-controversy-georgia-shows-its-still-an-sec-juggernaut-with-road-win-over-top-ranked-texas-054529629.html
Author : Yahoo Sports
Publish date : 2024-10-20 05:45:29
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