For the second year in a row, a sack and a fumble in a College Football Playoff quarterfinal game by Gunner Stockton resulted in disaster for Georgia.
Last year, Stockton’s fumble on a strip-sack was pivotal in a 23-10 loss to Notre Dame. The Georgia quarterback spent most of the next 12 months ruminating about the play. And then it happened again Thursday night at the Sugar Bowl.
With 9 minutes to play in the fourth quarter, and Georgia trailing Ole Miss by 3, Stockton was chased down from behind by Suntarine Perkins for a sack on a fourth-and-2 play.
Georgia rolled the dice from its own 33. Perkins came unblocked off Stockton’s blind side and gave the Bulldog passer no chance. Stockton was ruled to have fumbled the ball, but Ole Miss was getting the ball back regardless.
Two plays later, Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss cashed the turnover in for a touchdown to Harrison Wallace III. The score put Ole Miss, which entered the fourth trailing by 5, up by 10 points.
The throw to Wallace went down as the 13th consecutive completion for Chambliss, who went ballistic on the previous Ole Miss drive to push the Rebels into the lead.
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
