Georgia Bulldogs wide receiver Arian Smith made one of the Bulldogs’ only big plays in UGA’s 23-10 loss to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in the Sugar Bowl.
After the game, Smith gave credit to Notre Dame, but regretted that the Bulldogs did not play better. He emphasized the mistakes that Georgia made.
“Give all the credit to them (Notre Dame). They did a good job of doing things in all three phases of the game: offense, defense and special teams,” Smith said after the Sugar Bowl.
“It is hard to bounce back when you give up a, I don’t know how long it was, 99 yard kickoff return, have two fumbles and two turnovers and just give them the ball like that,” Smith continued. “We just handed them success, you know. They didn’t really do anything to like stop us. We just stopped ourselves.”
The Sugar Bowl was an evenly matched defensive brawl until Notre Dame scored 17 points in 54 seconds via a field goal, a forced fumble (Notre Dame scored one play later), and a kickoff return for a touchdown to start the second half.
Georgia’s errors combined with Notre Dame’s forced turnovers and kickoff return was a bad recipe for UGA quaterback Gunner Stockton and company. Like much of the 2024 season, Georgia played from behind too often. This time, it came back to bite Georgia.
