There’s dozens of plays and sequences of importance to point to in Georgia’s 44-41 overtime win at Tennessee that swung the game. But it was a pair of fourth quarter pre-snap penalties that proved incredibly costly to the Vols in their ninth straight loss in the series.
Neyland Stadium was as loud as it had been all game after Josh Josephs strip sacked Gunner Stockton and set up Tennessee at the Georgia 34-yard line with a five-point lead and 8:21 on the clock. It was a short field and an opportunity for Tennessee to deliver a near knockout blow.
But a false start on Sam Pendleton pushed Tennessee back out of scoring range and head coach Josh Heupel went ultra conservative. DeSean Bishop ran for seven yards on the first two plays to set up third-and-eight at the edge of field goal range.
Heupel made the most conservative call of the game, running Bishop again and setting up a 48-yard field goal that Max Gilbert booted in to extend Tennessee’s lead to 38-30.
“It’s a situation where they’re in the two-high bracket coverage,” Heupel said of the conservative play calling. “We obviously don’t pick up what we need to. We get behind the chains. And I was willing to be aggressive there if we got to a fourth down, too, had a little trap play. And end up losing inside on it. And we don’t pick it up and end up having to kick. And you got a chance to take it to full two possessions, for sure. But, first to second down, a little bit of how they were playing was why we were doing what we were doing, too.”
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Joey Aguilar was as hot as he’d been since the first quarter entering the drive. He’d completed his last four pass attempts since throwing his second interception of the game. Those pass attempts included a nine-yard completion on third down, a 54-yard touchdown and a 32-yard touchdown.
With a chance to deliver the knockout blow and Aguilar in a groove, Heupel taking the ball out of his hands and settling for a long field goal was a mistake. But it was the first down false start that took Tennessee completely out of its rhythm and in part led to the conservative play calling.
Then there was the sequence late. Tennessee had it third-and-five at the Georgia 20-yard line with six seconds and a timeout remaining. It appeared that Aguilar was going to center the ball for a short loss and Gilbert would come on to try the potential game winner.
But Sham Umarov moved early, which is completely inexcusable on a play where you’re not even trying to gain yards, and after a brief moment of discussion, Heupel sent out Gilbert to try a 43 yarder that he pushed well wide right.
“We were going to move it more to the upright where we were at, yard line did not have any lost yardage so with everything that transpired, that’s why we kicked it when we did,” Heupel said postgame.
