Both teams left points on the field in No. 17 Alabama's 24-21 defeat of No. 5 Georgia on Saturday night, but no points were more costly than the three the Bulldogs didn't take. Trailing by what turned out to be the final score, Georgia faced a 4th-and-1 at the Alabama 8-yard line with 13:20 to play in the game. Following a 2-yard carry by quarterback Gunner Stockton on third down, Georgia hurried to the line with three wide receivers set to the boundary and handed to running back Cash Jones toward the wide side of the field. Jones, traditionally a change-of-pace back who entered the night seventh on the team with three carries on the season, was tackled for a loss of three yards.
Georgia never possessed the ball inside Alabama territory again.
Here was the play.
"We had decided previous to that that if we gained anything, we were going for it," Georgia head coach Kirby Smart said afterward. "We were probably going to kick a field goal if we didn't get anything. That play has been really successful for us. I think we hit Tennessee on it three times for a conversion, we had run it earlier in the night for a conversion. We missed a block that you've got to make, and they ran through and made a really good play. I'd do that 10 out of 10 times, in terms of going for it. The decision is whether you go for it with tempo or not, and we felt like tempo had been really good for us throughout the year."
The play was Georgia's only fourth down attempt of the night, but the Bulldogs were just 2-of-8 on third downs as well, to Alabama's 13-of-19.
In going tempo in that situation, Georgia did not substitute Jones, who finished with two carries for minus-7 yards. Georgia running back Chauncey Bowens finished as easily the night's leading rusher with 119 yards on 12 carries, and Nate Frazier added 30 yards on four totes. "It just so happens he was in on third down," Smart said, "so he was in on fourth."
Alabama moved the ball from their own 11 to Georgia's 40, consuming 5:10 in the process. Georgia then went 40 yards and 10 plays over a costly 4:51, which delivered the ball back to Alabama with just 3:19 remaining. Six plays, five of them runs, allowed Alabama to eventually kneel the clock out and secure the program's 10th win over Georgia in 11 tries, dating back to 2008, including their second win over the Bulldogs in as many seasons and their seventh win over a Smart-coached Georgia team in eight meetings. It was also the first time in 72 games in which Georgia did not lead at any point.
“I mean what’s everybody else’s record against them?” Kirby Smart asked. “You got it? I don’t either. I don’t lose sleep over that because those games have been like championship-caliber games. Right?”
While Alabama is now 7-1 against Smart, everyone else's record against a Smart-led Georgia is 13-107, a difference in winning percentage of .767.