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NCAAF If Tyler Smith scored in the fourth overtime, it wasn't by much. Brett Davis / Imagn Images After a furious three-touchdown rally and four overtime periods, there was one last bit of drama left in Saturday’s Celebration Bowl. South Carolina State’s Tyler Smith caught a pass and — according to the referees — got a sliver of the football over a pylon at the goal line for a 2-point play. That was enough to cap the Bulldogs’ 40-38 defeat of Prairie View A&M in a wild back-and-forth affair at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. Advertisement The call on the field stood after video reviews of the score, giving the Bulldogs the lead in the fourth overtime. (For those unaware, in football, the orange pylons are considered part of the goal line and sideline. So, if a player touches a pylon with the ball or carries the ball over the vertical plane of one, that is deemed a score. ) Game officials ruled that Smith carried the ball over the pylon, although the various replay angles showed it may have been mere millimeters, if anything. The play that won South Carolina State the Celebration Bowl over Prairie View A&M will be debated for years. Unbelievable comeback by the Bulldogs in an incredible four OT game. pic. twitter. com/Wb I2fky Rc X — Bobby Football (@Rob__Paul) December 13, 2025 Prairie View had a chance to match the 2-point play and send the game into a fifth OT, but quarterback Cameron Peters fumbled as he was being tackled at the 5. Game over. College football overtime rules differ from the NFL’s. In the first OT period, each team gets a possession starting at the opponent’s 25. Whichever team scores the most with their possession wins. If there is a second OT, the teams must go for 2-point conversions after touchdowns. Starting from the third OT and onward, teams start at the opponent’s 3 and try to score on a 2-point play. There was plenty of drama before Smith’s controversial score. Prairie View built a 21-0 lead in the first half on Cameron Peters’ two touchdown passes and a touchdown run, but SC State scored three touchdowns in the first 10 minutes of the third quarter to tie the game 21-21. Bulldogs quarterback Ryan Stubblefield threw a 10-yard touchdown pass to Jordan Smith with 1: 54 left in the game to tie the score at 35-35. Earlier in the drive, Stubblefield connected with Smith for 23 yards on fourth-and-16. The Celebration Bowl serves as the de facto HBCU national championship game, featuring the champions of the MEAC (Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference) and the SWAC (Southwestern Athletic Conference) in Atlanta. Alex Valdes is a trending news reporter for The Athletic. Alex was previously a writer at CNET and Money Talks News, a web content manager at Tipico, a sports editor at NBC Sports and MSNBC, and had various content roles at Microsoft.