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Kirk Herbstreit sends message to Georgia fans following College Football Playoff victory

photos -jpgby:Ashton Pollard•01/11/22•

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Georgia snapped a 41-year national championship drought on Monday night, and as a result, congratulatory messages poured out from every corner of the nation. ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit hopped on that train and included a very sleepy looking mascot, Uga.

Herbstreit was on-site to call the game with coworker Chris Fowler. The duo has become a staple of the final contest of the college football season, with many memorable sound bites each year.

The ESPN analyst saw plenty of the Bulldogs in person this season, as the network’s Saturday morning pregame show, College GameDay, visited five Georgia games: Clemson, Arkansas, Kentucky, the SEC title game against Alabama and the national title game.

It wouldn’t be shocking if GameDay was seen at multiple Georgia games in 2022 as well, as the Bulldogs open with Oregon and play their regular, relatively high-profile divisional contests against a rising Tennessee, a solid Kentucky and an often difficult Florida.

Smart reacts to victory

On the topic of reactions to the title win, perhaps no one is as thrilled as Georgia head coach Kirby Smart, who led his alma mater to a 33-18 victory and beat his former boss Alabama head coach Nick Saban for the first time in five tries, including a defeat in the 2017 national championship game.

In his postgame interview with ESPN’s Molly McGrath, you could see how much it meant to Smart to win the title — and, at last, beat Alabama.

“That one will be with me for a long time,” Smart said of the 2017 national title loss. “This one will be with me for much longer. I’m proud of the University of Georgia, the support we get there.

“A lot of credit to Alabama [and] Coach Saban. They had a lot of injuries. They lost Jameson Williams in a tough situation. Our kids kept fighting and never doubted.”

Prior to the game, Smart talked about his players being “hungry.” Remember, Georgia lost to Alabama 41-24 in the SEC Championship last month — the Bulldogs’ first loss of the season.

He continued to see that hunger, even into Monday night’s victory.

“I saw it at halftime,” Smart said. “There were people that said we weren’t conditioned enough, and that pissed a lot of people off on our sideline, and they went to work. And before we came today, we burned the boats and we came out fighting. I’m proud of these men.”

On3’s Nick Schultz contributed to this report.