Clay Travis says Georgia's failed fake punt in SEC title game was last-ditch effort to keep Justin Fields from transferring

During the SEC Championship Game earlier this month, Georgia ran a fake punt on 4th-and-11 that was poorly executed and resulted in 5-star freshman QB Justin Fields being tackled well short of the first-down marker.

That play may have cost the Bulldogs the game, and many fans immediately called it into question, wondering what coach Kirby Smart was thinking.

After news broke of Fields’ potential impending transfer on Monday, Outkick the Coverage’s Clay Travis posted on Twitter that the fake punt may have been a last-ditch effort for Georgia to try to keep Fields from transferring:

So Justin Fields’s final play at Georgia was the worst fake punt play in SEC title game history. And it was a play designed & run, probably, to try and keep him from transferring. And all it did was cost Georgia the SEC title instead. Yikes.

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) December 18, 2018

Travis doubled down on that sentiment when questioned on Twitter, saying he absolutely believes Smart was thinking about Fields’ status with the team when he called the fake punt:

I 100% think he was thinking about it. There was no reason to play Justin Fields all year but to try and keep him from transferring. Jake Fromm was infinitely better. Fromm would have never left the field in competitive games if all that mattered was playing best quarterback. https://t.co/kHdmQU0CSc

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) December 18, 2018

Whatever the case, it doesn’t appear to have worked, though Fields hasn’t made his reported decision official yet. Still, this would be a big loss for Smart and the Bulldogs.