What was dumb was that he ran essentially the same play 3 times in a row before the 4th down play. He gave the ball to his FB and each time he got stuffed. All they had to do was run a play action fake on first down when Purdue would be expecting run and UGA's All-SEC tight end Ben Watson would be all by his lonesome in the endzone. Finally on 4th down he gave the ball to someone used to carrying it instead of blocking and he actually scored a TD.
Saban went for it on fourth deep in LSU territory in the 2001 SECCG. The game where he passed for a first down was the 2001 Arkansas game. Ironically, he made the "safe" call against Arky in 2002 and lost, but made a "gutsy" call in 2001 and won.