Kirby Smart explains how ‘new era’ changes perception of Alabama loss

Kirby Smart and his Georgia Bulldogs have been here before, reeling after the sting of another heartbreaking loss to rival Alabama. In fact, it was exactly one year ago when Ryan Williams‘ 75-yard touchdown sent the second-ranked Bulldogs to their first SEC loss of the 2024 season in Tuscaloosa.

A year later, No. 5 Georgia (3-1, 1-1 SEC) is back in the same position after Saturday night’s hard-to-swallow 24-21 loss to No. 17 Alabama (3-1, 1-0 SEC) in Athens. It was the Bulldogs’ 10th loss in their last 11 games against the Crimson Tide, with the lone victory in the 2022 College Football Playoff national championship game.

But as Smart and company evaluate how to bounce back and move forward through the rest of the 2025 season, the 10th-year Georgia head coach acknowledged setbacks like Saturday night are simply par for the course in this “new era” of college football, where parity reigns in the day and age of NIL and the NCAA Transfer Portal.

“The lesson that I take (away from this game) is we’ve got a good football team that’s got to get better. I love the team in that locker room. … They’re not perfect, (but) I’m telling you guys, this is the new era of what we’re going to see,” Smart said postgame Saturday night. “There’s games like that all over college football, and they’ll continue to be. And you know what, they’ve got to go play a good team next week, we’ve got to play a good team next week. It’s just what it is.”

Georgia will get its chance to right the ship next Saturday when Kentucky (2-2, 0-2 SEC) comes to Athens for a 12 pm ET kickoff on ABC, while Alabama returns home to host No. 18 Vanderbilt (5-0, 1-0 SEC) in a revenge game of sorts after Diego Pavia and the Commodores upset the top-ranked Crimson Tide 40-35 in Nashville last season. In a game that only exemplies Smart’s point about the “new era” of parity in college football, that loss snapped Alabama’s 23-game win streak — including two vacated wins and a forfeit — over Vanderbilt that dated back to 1985.

And while Smart sympathizes with the disappointment felt by Bulldogs fans after another agonizing loss to the Tide, the 49-year-old coach also knows the only thing left to do now is learn from what took place Saturday night and keep getting better. There’s no time to dwell when there’s still two months left in the regular season.

“I realize it’s a big game, I realize everybody wants to make a big deal about it, but for us, it happened to us last year,” Smart concluded. “We’ve got to go worry about the next one because you can’t let this game beat you twice.”