The momentum came in the Sugar Bowl after a made field goal Notre Dame forced to fumble past Georgia QB Gunner Stockton late in the first half and turned it into a touchdown. However, Kirby Smart didn’t mind how the Bulldogs acted in the final seconds before halftime.

Smart spoke about that scenario in the first answers of his postgame press conference following the 23-10 loss to the Fighting Irish in the CFP. With the score at 3-6, Smart was fine with his team aggressively trying to score or at least equalize before halftime, especially since Georgia got the ball early in the second half. The Bulldogs were beaten just on the left side of their offensive line, leading to the second of two costly turnovers.

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“Yeah, usually when you’re down you need every possession you can have. And we decided we were going to be aggressive and try to last two minutes. That’s all you should do. You can’t give up possessions when you’re behind,” Smart said. “So we’re down 6-3. We felt like we had a little quick pass. Certainly don’t expect him to get beat so quickly at left tackle. Got a sack fumble that gave them some momentum.”

In response, Smart also pointed out the weak defense. Riley Leonard threw a 13-yard slant score to Beaux Collins right after, making the turnover seem even worse.

“At the end of the day, we had great defense in the red zone,” Smart said. “We should stop them.”

The Sugar Bowl alternated to close and open the two halves within 54 seconds. After a defensive first half, Notre Dame tied the score by three with a field goal. The following two snaps for the Fighting Irish were RJ Oben’s forced fumble on Stockton and Junior Tuihalamaka’s fumble recovery on defense, followed by Leonard’s only touchdown throw to Collins.

Add in Jayden Harrison’s goal on the first kickoff of the second half, and the Dawgs went from a tie to a 20-3 deficit in less than a minute of the game starting. Smart expressed at least some regret about how things went before halftime. Still, despite all of that, in hindsight he agrees with what they did based on the numbers at the time.

“I think we moved the ball. We turned it around. So we had more yards than we did back then. We had more passing yards than they did back then. So I don’t think it’s just going to continue like this,” Smart said. “We were given a chance, we were given timeouts. We had the opportunity to score. We work two minutes every week and stay aggressive. I mean, we have a really good passing pro team and we didn’t select him in this game. He made a great rush and got a sack fumble.”

Although Georgia mounted a comeback in the third quarter, it was never able to overcome the events of that span. However, Smart is confident in what he thinks and what the Bulldogs were trying to accomplish there.

“We’re not playing passively here. So we play aggressively and try to score,” Smart said.

“I don’t question that decision because I really agree with the decision to be aggressive and try to score.”