AUBURN, Ala. — Millimeters matter. On the verge of going up by three possessions over No. 10 Georgia, Auburn fumbled away a chance at glory by the narrowest margin possible.
With 1:36 remaining in the first half, holding a lead of 10-0 with the ball on Georgia’s 1-yard line, Tiger quarterback Jackson Arnold attempted to sneak the ball across the goal line in what appeared to be a routine, brute-force touchdown.
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Only … no whistles blew. No referees raised their arms to signal a touchdown. And then Georgia’s Kyron Jones suddenly began sprinting in the opposite direction, toward the Auburn end zone, leaving everyone in the stadium and watching on television asking the same question:
What the hell just happened?
Chaos, that’s what happened:
Georgia apparently punched the ball loose from Arnold’s grip a fraction of an inch before the ball broke the plane. And Jones apparently wasn’t touched, either, rolling over a teammate before sprinting for the opposite end zone. Had he scored — and it certainly appeared he had a case for doing so — Auburn’s lead would have been a mere three points.
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But the officials blew the play dead, spent several minutes going over the footage from every possible angle, and judged that, yes, the ball was not in Arnold’s possession when his hand crossed the goal line.
Auburn’s Jackson Arnold very nearly scored a massive touchdown … or maybe he actually did. (Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
(Kevin C. Cox via Getty Images)
That decision, naturally, did not go over well with the Jordan-Hare crowd, which up until that moment had been enjoying their finest half of football all season, and perhaps of head coach Hugh Freeze’s entire tenure. It didn’t take much imagination to decide that Arnold still had possession of the ball when it crossed the proverbial plane, and the 85,000-plus Auburn fans in attendance certainly believed they had a better judgment on the play than the referees.
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Georgia ended up rallying to score 20 straight points and win the game, 20-10. Auburn never made it back to the goal line. The fumble — or blown call, depending on your perspective — effectively turned the game around after severely dented Auburn’s first-half aura. Boos blanketed the referees as they left the field for halftime, Auburn officials blasting them as they went.
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