As the adrenaline slowly began to put on off, Nick Saban settled in for his postgame press convention, ready for the inevitable query.
He and former Alabama assistant Kirby Smart shared a prolonged postgame handshake dialog, and one reporter requested the legendary coach about what was mentioned and his relationship with the Georgia star. Saban shared one factor that will shock followers—if the Crimson Tide misplaced the national title, he had a desire on who it could be to.
“If we needed to lose a national championship, I’d moderately lose one to one in every of the former assistants who did an incredible job for us, and has executed an incredible job together with his program and his crew,” Saban mentioned. “They deserve it; they performed nice all 12 months. We have been the solely crew to beat them in the SEC championship recreation. We simply couldn’t end the recreation tonight like we wished to.
“However I feel Kirby has executed a extremely, actually good job there, I congratulated him on the win. I’m actually happy with him, and I’m happy with the approach he’s been capable of coach his crew and the consistency that they’ve performed with all 12 months.”
Smart additionally requested Saban about Jameson Williams, who exited the recreation early attributable to an damage. And the Alabama head coach apparently told Smart, “You guys kicked our asses in the fourth quarter. Congrats.”
The national title recreation could have began out as the battle of the subject targets, however it quickly changed into a throwing competitors in the fourth quarter, ultimately being capped off with a championship sealing choose six from Kelee Ringo.
Monday’s win over Alabama marks Georgia soccer’s first national championship since 1980. Stetson Bennett has gone from a former walk-on quarterback to a national champion, and Smart turned the first former Alabama assistant coach underneath Saban to beat him.
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