Kirby Smart’s no-win decision

[Typical disclaimer: Only the opinions of an ordinary Bulldog fan and alumnus are being expressed here. I’ve never met or spoken with Coach Kirby Smart. I’m not authorized to speak on his behalf, nor on the behalf of the University of Georgia.]

There is no whining in college football.

Conventional wisdom called for the most conservative, safest strategy: instead of continuing to play to win, now try to extend play and avoid losing during the final three minutes of regulation.

The only problem was, that strategy failed miserably in the national championship game less twelve months ago, with a superior, more experienced Georgia defense. True, this Georgia defense has terrific young talent, but it is no longer anchored at key positions by the likes of Roquan Smith, Lorenzo Carter, or Davin Bellamy. Asking these freshmen and sophomores to stop an Alabama team from scoring that had beaten every regular season opponent by an average of three touchdowns and every prior SEC opponent by an astonishing average of almost 33 points per game would probably be asking too much of them.  Talk about deja vu. Twice in one year, to lead the vaunted, favored Crimson Tide by double digits late in the second half, and to lose the game only because Alabama scored on their final possession? That would be a very bitter pill to swallow. 

So Kirby Smart faced a difficult decision with 4th and 11 for Georgia’s offense at midfield, with 3:11 left in the fourth quarter of a tied SEC championship game. The “smart” play would be to punt the ball and hope to pin Alabama deep inside their own territory. No guts, no glory.

No glory, glory, to old Georgia. So Coach Smart chose to gamble and go for the win, because there’s no whining in college football. You either win, or you don’t. There is no appeal to some governing body after the game that might overturn an unfair result. Coach Smart simply can’t say what I’m going to say about the officiating: for the second consecutive time Georgia has played Alabama, the referees have done an atrocious job. Missed or wrong calls clearly affected the outcome of a championship game against the Crimson Tide.

Nobody likes whiners, or bad sportsmanship. But damn it, nobody likes losing because of gross incompetence, either. When every close or questionable call consistently goes against your team, even the most calm and rational fan will start to get paranoid and begin to entertain thoughts of conspiracy theories. To be crystal clear: I’m not saying that Alabama doesn’t have a national championship-caliber team, or that they cheated to win (personal fouls that aren’t flagged by the referees aren’t cheating). I don’t think anybody from Alabama (or anybody else) bribed the officials. But we are beginning to stretch the limits of the imagination and the rules of statistical probabilities as the inequity apparently continues to grow. This was the second consecutive championship game against Alabama that articles about the bad calls that went against Georgia have gone viral on social media. In January we had the national championship game debacle of the wrong team called for offsides on a crucial blocked punt, and another recent article that itemized the equally poor officiating in this SEC championship game, by two completely different sets of officials.

Question: if every non-Alabama fan can tell that Tyler Simmons was onside before the snap by instant replay, why can’t the officials? Why not use replay to get every crucial call right? If they can use instant replay to catch a targeting penalty by review, why not holding calls that everyone on the planet except for the blind man dressed like a zebra can see? Georgia fans believe in winning with integrity and losing with dignity, but we also think the same rules ought to be applied to both teams fairly and equally.

As the man who invented James Bond famously wrote,

“Once is an accident. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is an enemy action.”

Ian Fleming, Goldfinger

Everyone (except perhaps some Alabama fans) would collectively feel better if a similar compilation of blown calls benefiting Georgia could be culled from the same game tape, because nobody except cheaters and poor sports desire an unjust outcome. As it stands, Georgia fans will have to simmer, enjoy the Sugar Bowl, keep a hopeful eye on recruiting, and wait until next year for our next opportunity to play for the national championship.

Back to Coach Smart’s difficult decision: if our hypothesis that missed/bad calls heavily favored Alabama proves true by further examination of game tape, then it is reasonably safe to assume that Coach Smart expected that pattern would continue for the remainder of the game, just as he should anticipate that Alabama would be playing with extra motivation now that victory was within their grasp. Even a field goal with no time on the clock would have won the game. It’s infinitely more difficult to score on defense than offense. So Kirby tried to keep the ball.

I don’t blame him a bit. Perhaps our talented freshman punter could have downed a pooch punt inside their 20 yard line. Or their return man could have fumbled.  As the expression goes, if “ifs” and “buts” were candy and nuts, we’d all have a Merry Christmas. By the same token, Alabama could have blocked the punt, or the return man could have broken free for a touchdown. The only way Coach Smart controlled the team’s destiny was by keeping possession of the ball. Should have, would have, could have. (Natives of south Georgia pronounce it shoulda, woulda, coulda.) 

My whole point is, Coach Smart has now tried it both ways. He’s been conservative with the lead, and he’s showed the nerve of a riverboat gambler in a high risk/high reward scenario. I could be completely wrong about my hunch on another factor in the decision, but I suspect Coach Smart decided to go for it on 4th and 11 because nobody would even think to blame any of the players for missed opportunities during the game. I think Coach Smart made that call so that none of our idiotic fans would blame the loss on our excellent kicker, Rod Blankenship, who has a rare miss on a field goal attempt. Or any other player.  As far as I can tell, the only blame that has been directed at anyone for the loss has been focused entirely on Coach Smart for his decision to call for the fake punt. I also think Coach Smart understood we would probably lose the game if we punted, because Alabama’s wide receivers were no longer uncharacteristically dropping open passes like they had in the first half, and it was too much to ask them to stop one of the most prolific scoring teams in college football history.

The no-win decision was exactly that because Kirby Smart gambled, playing to win because he had to know that losing the game would probably result in missing the opportunity to play for the championship playoff. Oklahoma would earn its playoff spot because the team had one fewer loss and a conference championship, while unbeaten (and unworthy) Notre Dame naturally enjoyed the luck of the Irish. The only way Coach Smart could control the team’s own destiny would be if we kept the ball. For 56 minutes and 49 seconds, Smart’s team had done the unthinkable…outplayed mighty Alabama, allegedly the best college football team since that 1888 juggernaut known as the Yale Bulldogs.

The Georgia Bulldogs deserved to win this game, but couldn’t buy a break. Coach Smart insisted that he thought the fake would work, but it didn’t, and he wouldn’t have had any reason to risk that call if we had still had the lead. Alabama scores because of the short field, and then benefits from a couple more missed calls against the Crimson Tide from the officials on face mask or holding penalties. Game over.

Better luck next year. Because there is no whining in college football. But there needs to be fairness.