Kirby Smart is busy dousing an unusual fire after the Auburn game. A controversial timeout-or-not-timeout call has sparked considerable controversy, prompting the HC to repeatedly clarify his motives. Once again, he doubled down on his stand and explained why he pulled the move in the first place, and what the SEC thought about it.

With just 13 minutes left on the clock and Georgia looking at 3rd-and-9, Smart suddenly flagged the officials for a timeout. He was awarded the stop, despite clarifying to the officials that he hadn’t asked for a timeout. Smart was instead pointing out that the Auburn defense was simulating a clap. When asked if he had heard from the higher-ups about the controversial decision, he still stood firm on his side of the story. “I talked to no one SEC [office] wise, and I stand by what I talked about after the game,” he told the press recently.

Georgia still got a new play despite this call not being officially recorded as a timeout. The Bulldogs then went for a missed field goal on that play. Kirby clarified his intention behind the call in the post-game presser itself. “I didn’t need a timeout. It was the fact that they were clapping. I wanted them to call it because it’s a penalty,” he said. Smart repeatedly highlighted that the clapping has caused Georgia to make false starts. And, he also stressed that he’s “lost games on that” at the Jordan-Hare Stadium.

The important takeaway here is that Georgia escaped without a false start and a delay of the game penalty. Auburn didn’t take a hit because of the restart down, but lost some crucial time on the field. The SEC and Greg Sankey are already under fire for the officiation of this game, after Jackson Arnold’s attempted TD was ruled a fumble. The loss weighs extremely heavily for Auburn, as they go 0-3 in the SEC and 3-3 in the season. Hugh Freeze couldn’t help but

comment on how the officials were still wrong.

Hugh Freeze blames officials for not acting correctly on Kirby Smart call

Georgia got away with a surefire delay of the game penalty. Not only that, but the Bulldogs were gifted a new down altogether. That’s not a turn of events that happens together, and that’s what Hugh Freeze was concerned about. “I don’t know how–they should have a delay of the game or a timeout there. Not a whole new play,” he said after the game. “Still not sure what happened there. There’s a lot of times that I make bad calls, and officials do the same. But it certainly feels like we’re not getting many of the breaks,” Freeze said after the game.

The officiating crew flagged Auburn 11 times, and fans have also argued that there were serious lapses in judgment here. Hugh Freeze even pursued the officials into the stadium when the game had ended. The SEC office was also accused of interfering with the game way too much. It buzzed down to the field to call a targeting penalty for Kayin Lee. It was the 4th time in 20 minutes that the office above had interrupted the game for a call already made on the field, per Sports Illustrated’s Stephen Atkinson.

It’s already been some time since the game, and the SEC is still silent on the officiating blunders. Kirby Smart has already gotten past the timeout drama; it didn’t really put Georgia for anything much. But the loss will be eating away at Auburn, and at Hugh Freeze,

whose seat continues to get hotter as the season progresses.