A little-known University of Georgia football player accidentally stepped into the limelight Thursday, costing his team 15 valuable yards and earning a permanent spot in social media infamy.
Redshirt sophomore cornerback Parker Jones was still trending online Friday morning even though he didn’t suit up on Thursday — but still managed to make a key play in favor of opposing Notre Dame, early in the second quarter of the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans.
Georgia quarterback Gunner Stockton hooked up with Arian Smith for a 67-yard bomb down to the Irish 11-yard line.
As side judge JB Garza raced after Smith and Irish defender Xavier Watts, the official collided with Parker — who was not suited up for the game but still wearing a red Georgia jersey —inside a clearly marked white lane that runs out of bounds, along the sidelines, that’s meant to be clear of any players.
The Dawgs were flagged for 15 yards, pushing them back to the Notre Dame 26 where the drive stalled. Runs of 2 and 1 yards preceded an incomplete pass as Georgia was forced to settle for a 41-yard field goal by Peyton Woodring.
Georgia coach Kirby Smart called that play “very unfortunate” and a “self-imposed” wound.
“The white is reserved for the officials. That’s a safety concern,” Smart said after the game. “We still had first-and-10 and didn’t take advantage of it. But again, I call those things undisciplined, self-imposed wounds that you know you lose momentum on.”
There’s no telling if Georgia could have scored a touchdown first-and-10 from the 11. And those lost points probably didn’t make any difference in Notre Dame’s 23-10 win in the College Football Playoff (CFP) quarterfinal game.
Still, Jones seemed to get the Steve Bartman-like treatment for his inadvertent error.
“If Parker Jones had a sense of the moment he’d wear a fake mustache when he comes out for the 2nd half,” Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy wrote Thursday, leading the online pitchfork brigade.
While Parker was the target of a worldwide web of jokes, a fair number of netizens came to his defense and said ESPN cameras shouldn’t have focused so much on him in the play’s aftermath.
“How about ESPN stop trying to ruin the kid’s life,” one Utah-based X member wrote in a post that had more than 77,000 views by Friday morning. “It ultimately had zero material impact on the outcome.”
Jones is listed as a 5-foot-11 cornerback from Albany, Georgia, who attended Deerfield-Windsor School. He does not have any listed statistics.
