Kirby Smart explains why Georgia's national title is not quite 'vindication'

Four years ago, the story was unfathomable heartbreak for Kirby Smart and the Georgia Bulldogs.

Smart led Georgia to a win in the 2017 SEC Championship, defeating the Alabama Crimson Tide in the process. Weeks later, the two SEC powerhouse programs faced off in a rematch, with the winner taking home the national championship. And when Georgia jumped out to a 13-0 halftime lead, even leading as much as 20-10 at the start of the fourth quarter, many thought it was over — the Bulldogs were minutes away from their first national title since 1980.

They were on their way to winning the trophy — that is, until they weren’t.

“I don’t know if that pain will ever be numb because you put so much into those years,” Smart said on Monday night, shortly after he changed the narrative. “It passes and you hate it for the people that were in that locker room and part of it.”

What ensued was a storybook ending for the Crimson Tide. The game went to overtime after a 10-point fourth-quarter comeback by Alabama, led by Tua Tagovailoa — who entered the game for Jalen Hurts at halftime, marking his first meaningful, non garbage-time appearance of the season — and Georgia nailed a field goal for the first score of overtime. The 23-20 lead seemed safe when, at the Georgia 25-yard line, Tagovailoa was sacked for a 16-yard loss, setting up a second-and-26 for Alabama from Georgia’s 41-yard line.

But the rest was history. Tagovailoa dropped back in the shotgun and found a wide open DeVonta Smith, who scored a touchdown and gave Alabama a 26-23 win over the Bulldogs.

Fast forward to 2022, and the story was liberating revenge for Georgia Bulldogs fans, as the program finally beat Alabama, won the national title and ended a drought dating back to 1980. But after the win, Smart said that he didn’t see it as the vindicating event that his fans might have.

“Certainly, I don’t know that ‘vindication’ is the word, it’s not about that when it’s about Alabama,” Smart explained. “I just have so much respect for their program and the way they do things, that it’s great competitors. It’s like when Michael Jordan is going against the best there is, when LeBron is going against Kobe, I enjoy that moment and I respect teams and coaches that do it the right way. And those two teams last night were titans clashing going at it, the physical nature of that game in the fourth quarter, so proud of our team because there were people that doubted our conditioning level. They doubted that we could finish in the fourth quarter.”

Given that Georgia had blown four-straight leads to Alabama in the 2017 national title game, 2018 SEC Championship game, 2020 regular season and 2021 SEC Championship game, it’s easy to see why Smart and the Bulldogs had so many fourth-quarter skeptics. But the Bulldogs, led by former walk-on Stetson Bennett’s 17-of-26, 224-yard, two-touchdown performance, were able to emerge victorious, 33-18, after outscoring Alabama by 11 points in the fourth.

“The Alabama games in the past didn’t help with that,” Smart said of the Georgia-Alabama recent history, which all but equated a Bulldogs lead to a soon-to-be Bulldogs loss. “And they did that. They overcame that. They really were more physical and dominant in the fourth quarter. And that was the difference in the game and probably what made me the most proud of the group.”

In the end, it was a revenge story of sorts for Georgia. Finally, the Bulldogs are national champions. But Smart exercised caution in calling it one.

Kirby Smart: Five years ago Stetson Bennett was making plays against Georgia’s scout team

Stetson Bennett threw for 224 yards and two touchdowns in Georgia’s victory in the national championship on Monday night. Bennett’s career has truly come full circle with the Bulldogs. Georgia head coach Kirby Smart reflected on Bennett’s journey, noting that five years ago, he was making plays against the scout team. Now, he is the starting quarterback on a championship winning football team.

Smart was asked after the win about Bennett’s journey to where he is today. If Smart was told five years ago that Bennett would lead the Bulldogs to a national title, it wouldn’t have come as a surprise.

“I’d have thought, hell yeah we won a National Championship,” Smart said when asked what he would have thought if someone told him Stetson Bennett led Georgia to a championship. “I’d have been pumped. Five years ago he was delivering passes like Baker Mayfield against the scout team. There’s a lot of guys that saw him on that scout team make plays with his feet, his arm whip and decision making, and we were very impressed.

“But again, to think that it would come this far from that National Championship he was a part of there to this one, man, what a story.”