Adam Sparks

asparks@tennessean.com

ATHENS, Ga. – Vanderbilt's season-long quarterback carousel made a bizarre turn at a pivotal point in a 44-17 loss to No. 13 Georgia on Saturday.

Vanderbilt coach Derek Mason said quarterback Stephen Rivers, who replaced starter Wade Freebeck, read a play-call upside-down on his wristband on a key fourth-and-2 play in the third quarter. A "60" call signaled to Rivers was interpreted as "90," and it resulted in a 53-yard interception return by Georgia's Devin Bowman to end Vanderbilt's comeback hopes and seal the outcome.

"(Rivers) looked at the wristband wrong (because) 60 was the play call, but 90 is what he called. He sort of flipped it, got it confused," Mason said. "In the end, it just wound up being a bad play."

Mason, a defensive-minded coach, said he realized the offense was lined up for the wrong play at the snap. He said offensive coaches, which would include offensive coordinator Karl Dorrell, should have recognized it earlier.

"When you're down on the clock, one of the offensive coaches needs to make the timeout call instead of getting us into a bad play," Mason said. "We got into a bad play, and it resulted in a touchdown. That's on us. ... It's all of our fault."

Vanderbilt (1-5, 0-4 SEC) was trailing 27-10 after finally building some momentum. It drove to the Georgia (4-1, 2-1) 29-yard line and faced fourth-and-2. Rivers, a right-handed quarterback, rolled to his left, spun back to the right and tossed a delayed pass across the field to tight end Steven Scheu. Bowman broke on the ball, easily intercepted it and sprinted untouched to the end zone to push the lead to 34-10.

Scheu said the play-call made no sense, but players did not object.

"We thought the play-call was funky once we heard it in the huddle," Scheu said. "Guys were kind of looking around thinking that probably wasn't the best call, but no one stood up and said anything about it unfortunately. It was obviously the wrong play-call against the defense they were running."

Mason said the call was instead supposed to be a different pass that had worked earlier in the game, and Georgia had lined up in a favorable coverage for it. Instead, Vanderbilt never recovered from the mistake, and Rivers was replaced by Freebeck on the next possession.

Rivers was not made available during postgame interviews. Freebeck, who watched the fourth-down play from the sideline, said nothing looked right on the play.

"Definitely when they lined up and motioned, we knew something was wrong," Freebeck said. "I didn't know what to think. It happened so fast. It was a miscommunication on our part."

Freebeck made his third start overall and second straight since sophomore Patton Robinette suffered a concussion against South Carolina two weeks ago. Freebeck was ineffective early but returned later and led Vanderbilt on a 75-yard touchdown drive. He finished 9-of-18 passing for 100 yards.

Rivers, the younger brother of San Diego Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers, led Vanderbilt to a touchdown on his first drive in the second quarter. He was 7-of-13 for 88 yards and the one costly interception.

Ralph Webb rushed for 77 yards and one touchdown for Vanderbilt, and Dallas Rivers added a 6-yard scoring run.

Georgia's Heisman Trophy candidate, running back Todd Gurley, rushed for 163 yards and two touchdowns on 25 carries. He also tossed a 50-yard pass out of a Wildcat formation that set up a back-breaking touchdown just before halftime.

Reach Adam Sparks at 615-259-8010 and on Twitter @AdamSparks.