Notre Dame Fighting Irish head coach Marcus Freeman made a bold decision to go for a fourth and short from deep within his own territory late in the fourth quarter against Georgia. Freeman’s decision worked out well for Notre Dame, who drew Georgia offsides after subbing their punt unit and then offense on the field.
“That situation that happened in the fourth quarter was something we practiced,” said Freeman. Notre Dame capitalized on the first down and ate up some more clock on a drive that lasted over seven minutes and extinguished any chance of a comeback.
Georgia head coach Kirby Smart did not think that Notre Dame’s substitution was legal. “I’ve been told by our head of officials in the SEC that you can’t do that. You can’t run 11 on, 11 off,” said Smart. “We did it in 2017 against Tennessee. We’ve carried that. We practiced that and repped that because teams try to do it, and we were told by officials you could not do that.”
Georgia’s offside penalty crushed any chance the Bulldogs had of making a comeback. Ultimately, Georgia was more mistake-prone than Notre Dame and was not as physical as the Irish.
“And I think the performance was a reflection of that. We had a lot of confidence in the ability to be able to do that, and we had a plan. And that’s the aggressiveness in terms of our preparation that I want our program to have, and again, out there when it matters the most. And so, that’s got to be one of our edges, is that we are going to be an aggressive group and not fear making mistakes,” Freeman continued.
Georgia’s aggressiveness against Notre Dame backfired late in the first half when UGA fumbled deep withing their territory with under a minute remaining. Notre Dame capitalized on Georgia’s mistake and scored a touchdown.
