It was a big interception for Texas.
Then it was not.
Then, after minutes of chaos, confusion and a convergence of referees, Texas had its interception.
With the Longhorns trailing by multiple scores in the third quarter against Georgia, Jahdae Barron picked off a pass from Bulldogs quarterback Carson Beck — for the second time in the game — before returning the ball 33 yards to set up Texas deep inside enemy territory.
Nevertheless, officials negated the big play for the Longhorns after calling pass interference on the defense.
Texas fans, near one of the end zones, then started to throw items — largely water bottles — onto the playing field, which stopped play and led to head coach Steve Sarkisian asking his fans to stop their actions.
At that point, officials then converged and decided there was actually no pass interference and Texas would in fact keep the ball.
Two plays later, Texas punched in a touchdown on a pass from Quinn Ewers, who was briefly benched for Arch Manning.
Georgia, however, did respond with a fourth-quarter touchdown to go up 15 points early in the final frame of regulation, a margin it held on to win by, ending Texas’ unbeaten mark.
After the game, Georgia head coach Kirby Smart called out what happened.
“But I will say that now we’ve set a precedent that if you throw a bunch of stuff on the field and endanger athletes, that you have a chance to get your call reversed,” he told reporters. “That’s unfortunate because to me that’s dangerous. That’s not what we want. That’s not criticizing officials. That’s what happened.”
“These players bring the best out of me,” Smart added. “They tried to rob us with calls in this place. And these guys are so resilient.”
Both teams are now 6-1.
