Kirby Smart Talks Through an Epic Timeout That Saves Georgia's Title Hopes

Watch as Kirby Smart talks through one of the most epic timeouts ever called by a college football coach, and perhaps saving the national title hopes for Georgia.

Football games aren't often directly impacted by football coaches. In fact, one of the most helpless times during a football coach's existence actually happens to be on gameday. 

Sure, they impact the plays called, the adjustments made, and the morale of the team all rest on the shoulders of the head man, but it's not often the head coach makes "the play" of the game. 

With 8:58 seconds left, the ball on Ohio State's own 28-yard line, they elected to run a fake punt on 4th and 1, converting the attempt as well. However, as the Buckeye fans erupted inside of Mercedes Ben were going berzerk, rings of whistles burst out across the stadium. Georgia head coach Kirby Smart called a last-second timeout, based on a hunch and film study in the heat of the moment. 

They just were not in their traditional formation. A lot of teams carry that speed break. They come up the line quick. Everybody's lined up tight. And we've seen it in the SEC. A lot of teams carry it, and you try to practice it, but it's another thing when they actually do it and execute it. So it was one of those gut reactions that I didn't think that we had it lined up properly to stop it, so we called timeout.

Smart went on to say that he wasn't on the special teams' channel on the headsets during that moment, he was actually on the defensive headsets, but he felt compelled to call the timeout anyways. He light heatedly joked afterwards that he hates "wasting" timeouts in the second half because they can potentially cost you a possession down the stretch, however this timeout saved a possession for Georgia. 

One play later, Stetson Bennett connected with Arian Smith on a 76-yard touchdown pass. 

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