Georgia "Fired Up and Ready to Work"

Georgia head coach Kirby Smart spoke with ESPN's CFP Selection Show broadcast following their selection to the College Football Playoff.

Despite Georgia's perfect (12-0) record entering the SEC Championship game, and a defense that had been historically suffocating throughout the season. The ingredients were there for a loss, you just had to use every single one of them in a recipe.

Saturday afternoon, Alabama executed that recipe to perfection. 

Now, Georgia heads to Miami, Florida to take on the Michigan Wolverines in the Orange Bowl. 

As for the loss to humbling 41 to 24 loss to Alabama, head coach Kirby Smart was adamant that this would be a "wake-up call" more than anything. He doubled down on that sentiment Sunday afternoon when he joined the CFP Selection Show on ESPN. 

On how you bounce back after a loss like that: 

It's accomplished with great leadership within this team. Sitting here listening to Jim speak about his team. It's so ironic I feel like our leadership is as good as it's ever been. To see those men in that locker room last night after the game, it gave me great confidence of what'll go on here in the next three to four weeks, there was a lot of hurt. There's a lot of pain. A lot of guys reached out last night and fired up ready to go to go to work. And that's what we needed.

On what you learn from the Alabama loss: 

Well, biggest thing you learn is that you can't have two turnovers. We have a pick six and yeah win the third-down category, not winn in redzone. If you told me the stat line would read if we didn't win redzone battle if we didn't win the third down. We didn't get a sack. And we had two turnovers. You know, I don't think I would think that it would look real good. So you have to dig into those details and say, why did that happen. And that's something we got to work on. 

On how to move this team forward: 

Well, I think one of the biggest times you get your team to learn and I've seen this experience with our teams, the greatest learning experiences have come from losses, there's no greater realization or attention to detail that comes after a loss. So our guys are like sponges right now. They're ready to absorb information. They're ready to go to work they're all in, not they wouldn't have been had the one but it's an eye-opening experience and sometimes you see those flaws you see brutal truths. And the best way to handle those who have optimism and go to work. And I know our guys to be challenged ready to do that. 

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