Saban reveals what he told Smart after Alabama beat Georgia

Nick Saban may not have been pulling for the Georgia Bulldogs to beat Alabama last Saturday, but he still had a message for Kirby Smart once the game was over.

On Saturday’s edition of “College GameDay,” Saban revealed he sent a text message to Smart, his former assistant, following Georgia’s 41-34 loss to the Crimson Tide. The very Saban-esque message was to remind Smart that Georgia’s season was far from over and a loss like that could even be beneficial down the road.

“Hey, this is not the worst thing that’s ever happened,” Saban wrote to Smart, via Mike Rodak of 247 Sports. “Most of our best teams lost a game somewhere along the line and they responded the right way, because we had really good leadership on the team that held people accountable to do things the way you needed to do it to have success.”

Saban is not wrong, especially since one loss is less likely to ruin an entire season with a 12-team College Football Playoff. Smart coached under Saban at Alabama from 2007 to 2015, so while those teams did not lose many games, the ones they did lose certainly worked as motivation the rest of the way.

Smart may not have received that text if Saban was still coaching, but to paraphrase his own words, it might be like getting some consolation from Darth Vader.