In a game with no shortage of big plays, or misplays, to be dissected, Georgia defensive back Damian Swann’s 99-yard return of a controversial fumble for a touchdown commanded attention.
To Swann, the play was simple: “I saw the ball. I went to ripping at it. Luckily, it started coming out. I just took it and ran.”
The play occurred in the third quarter, with the score tied 7-7 and Georgia Tech on the verge of scoring from the Georgia 2-yard line. On a keeper up the middle, Tech quarterback Justin Thomas pushed toward the goal line. His forward progress appeared to some — although not to Swann — to be stopped in a pile of players. No whistle was blown, and Swann stripped the ball from Thomas and ran 99 yards the other way to give Georgia a short-lived 14-7 lead.
“I don’t think the play should have been blown dead,” Swann said after the game. “Everything that was going on would have affected the play. I mean, you’re going to blow it dead because he’s standing up at the 1? I don’t think I ever saw anybody fully have a grasp of the quarterback. I think they had the fullback.
“Once I got in there and started ripping at the ball and it started moving, my main thing was to try to get it before they blew the ball dead.”
Tech saw the play differently.
“The guy’s knee was down when they took the ball,” coach Paul Johnson said. “It looked to me like it was either a (Thomas) touchdown or his knee was down. He was down on the ground, and they’re pushing him back. And the next thing I know, here goes (Swann) with the ball.”
“I felt like I was in (the end zone),” Thomas said. “But they said I wasn’t, so we had to move on.”
The play was reviewed, but the ruling on the field — a fumble and Swann touchdown — stood.
Before that play, the Bulldogs had been on the other side of two key fumbles as they were on the verge of scoring.
In the first quarter, on second-and-goal from the Tech 1-yard line with Georgia leading 7-0, UGA tailback Nick Chubb lost a yard and then the ball, which Tech’s Tyler Marcordes recovered at the 3.
“We had done a good job all year of not turning the ball over,” Chubb said. “It happened so fast, you can’t even remember what happened. It came out of my hands, and they got on it.”
In the second quarter, at the end of a 13-yard run to the Tech 1-yard line, Georgia tailback Sony Michel fumbled the ball into the end zone, where it was recovered by Tech’s Isaiah Johnson for a touchback.
“That was frustrating, but mistakes happen,” Michel said. “All we can do is get up and keep fighting.”
