Kirby Smart talks Jim Harbaugh, Aidan Hutchinson and Michigan's 'impressive' leadership

Michigan Wolverines football head coach Jim Harbaugh and Georgia Bulldogs’ head man Kirby Smart held a satellite camp in the Peach State back in 2016. Now, No. 2 Michigan and No. 3 Georgia will do battle in the Orange Bowl Dec. 31 for a spot in the national title game.

“I’ve got a lot of respect for Michigan, Coach Harbaugh’s team,” Smart said. “I got to see a little bit of their game [against Iowa in the Big Ten championship game]. I’ve seen a few of their games on TV throughout the season when we had some late kicks and they had some early ones.

“I’ve got a lot of respect for the job they’ve done. I’ve always respected him as a college coach and pro coach. Obviously, with his brother-in-law being [Georgia head basketball coach] Tom Crean, Tom and I have grown to be good friends and a mutual respect for their family. So I know our university is certainly excited about representing in the College Football Playoff. And our players today are enthused to get this opportunity and get a chance to go back out and play.”

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The Wolverines are coming off a Big Ten title, while Georgia was undefeated heading into the SEC championship game but lost to Alabama, 41-24.

Speaking Sunday, Smart said he doesn’t have a ton of impressions of Michigan yet, but will obviously dig into the film as the game draws closer. He did notice some characteristics of the Wolverines’ squad, though.

“The biggest thing I noticed was the physicality they played with [against Iowa],” Smart said. “The leadership they had. I was thoroughly impressed with the interviews that I saw among their players postgame. I think you can always tell where a team stands and what they’re all about by what they talk about, the messaging. To hear those guys talk after the game was really impressive. They’re a senior-laden, senior-driven team that leads that way.”

The Michigan leadership starts with fourth-year junior defensive end Aidan Hutchinson, a Heisman Trophy finalist who’s racked up 14.0 sacks on the season.

“No. 1, I was really impressed with his interviews,” Smart said. I caught him on, I forget who he was on with, but the College Football Playoff coverage, and you could tell, high motor, high intensity, serious, just a talented player.

“And it’s funny, when I got home and turned the game on, I was watching it, I’ve got a nine-year-old son who loves college football, he just watches everything, YouTube. And he started telling me about Michigan’s players. And that’s the first guy he started telling me about. I’m like, How does my nine-year-old son know about him. He knew everything about him, and was giving me all these stats. I was pretty amazed, because I really just started to fill myself in on Michigan, and he was talking about him.”

There’s an argument to be made that Alabama, which came into the SEC title game with one loss, was more desperate than Georgia, which could’ve factored into the result. The Bulldogs were ranked No. 1 for the bulk of the season and were a touchdown favorite over the Crimson Tide. But now, Smart is confident that his players will regroup and be ready for a primetime, New Year’s Eve showdown with the Wolverines.

“They’ll listen twice as hard now than probably they would have had they won,” Smart said. “If you went down the stat line that says you’re playing a team the caliber of Alabama, you lose the turnover battle two to zero, one was a pick-six, you lose the red zone battle, you lose third downs, you’re probably not going to come out ahead. It’s something you can’t do when you play good football teams. And that includes all the teams in the CFP.

“So it’s a great learning experience for our guys to understand that now you’ve got to go look at yourself in a mirror and say, We’ve got to figure out what’s the best thing we do. And how do we get better at this point. And I do think you can get better at this point, and I think our guys got a good awakening of that, and they’ll do nothing but work hard now to be the best they can be. We haven’t played the best version of ourselves, I’ve said that all year, and that’s our job as coaches to get the best version of them out, and we’ve got to do that.”