Jake Pope responds to viral video of him celebrating with Ole Miss fans

In case you missed it, Georgia football defensive back Jake Pope was caught on video celebrating with Ole Miss fans immediately after their loss to the Rebels this weekend. And the video, as one would imagine, is about as bad as it gets.

There really is no explanation for why Pope thought this was an okay thing to do. Kirby Smart agrees with that sentiment as well as he went as far as calling Pope an "idiot" for what he did in this video.

So now that the Georgia fanbase got the chance to react to this video, and Smart weighed in as well, the only person yet to speak on this video was Pope himself. Thankfully he did just that on Monday by posting the below statement on social media.

Jake Pope apologizes for viral video

Pope states in the above post that his reaction with the Ole Miss fans was not because he was celebrating the Rebels' win over Georgia, but because he was excited because those fans were family friends of his. And the reason they were wearing Ole Miss gear is because a former teammate of Pope, who plays for Ole Miss, is a family friend as well.

There's no reason to doubt this statement from Pope or think he is lying, but it’s hard to believe he is telling the whole story.

Is it normal to act this excited just to see someone to the point where it causes you to jump up and down, smile and laugh? Maybe, but probably unlikely. Especially when you consider it was minutes after Georgia just suffered their first loss to a team not named Alabama in over four years.

Nobody is saying he shouldn’t be excited to see his family friends, it’s probably even fine for him to be a little happy for his former teammate on Ole Miss too. But to get this excited while all the fans are rushing the field around him? To me it doesn’t seem like Pope was just happy to see his family friends.