‘I couldn’t be prouder’: Nick Saban praises his team after SEC Championship win, makes case for Playoff inclusion

ATLANTA, Ga. (WBRC) - As the confetti fell from the heavens above Mercedes-Benz Stadium and Alabama celebrated yet another Southeastern Conference Championship, the squeaky clean finish to the College Football season was one that could have went up in smokes.

Alabama, ranked eighth with one loss, just upset the No.1 team in the country and gave the Playoff Committee the most unenviable of tasks - select the four best teams.

“I know they have a tough job. I know there’s a lot of good teams,” Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban said after the game. “But I’m just speaking up for our guys on our team who have busted their butt all year long to accomplish what they’ve accomplished. I think that needs to be recognized.”

While Alabama may be the SEC Champions, there is still the problem of having so many ranked teams ahead of them - namely Texas, who beat the Tide in week two inside Bryant-Denny Stadium. But, the eye test doesn’t lie, and that was a different team than the one that defeated Georgia Saturday night.

“I think I couldn’t be prouder of a bunch of guys on a team that has come so far from where we were second, third game of the season,” Saban said.

Quarterback Jalen Milroe finished Saturday with 192 yards and two touchdowns through the air and 23 rushing yards, earning him game MVP honors.

The redshirt sophomore didn’t mince words about what he thought the win over Georgia meant and should mean to the committee.

“I’ve got something to say,” Milroe said when asked what his message to the committee would be. “Georgia No. 1, right? You beat the No. 1 team, what do you consider us? What does that consider us? At the end of the day, that’s out of our reach. Biggest thing we got to do is trust the process, keep getting better. But we beat the best team in the nation considerably, so what do I consider us?”

That’s now the question the Playoff committee faces after the No. 8 team beat the No. 1 team on the field.

The head-to-head loss to Texas has kept the Tide ranked behind the Longhorns since the first Playoff rankings were released earlier this season. Does the win over Georgia finally put Alabama over Texas, who won the Big XII Championship, 21-49, over Oklahoma State Saturday?

For Georgia, the question now is how far do the Bulldogs fall?

Head coach Kirby Smart believes his team is still one of the four best teams in the country, despite the loss Saturday night.

“I think it’s the eye test,” Smart said after the game. “You look at what we’ve done this season, to go on the road, the teams we beat, the teams that are in the top 20 that we were able to beat.”

Georgia has three wins over teams currently ranked in the committee’s top 25, including Missouri, Ole Miss, and Tennessee.

With the Playoff selections just mere hours away, Saban wants his team to celebrate Saturday’s win. But, he said, now the next challenge begins.

“The next challenge is how do you deal with success, how do you deal with success?” Saban said. “That will be the next challenge for this team because I think, I agree with Jalen, that we should acknowledge the fact and celebrate the fact that we won the SEC championship. That’s significant. But now, if we have an opportunity to do something else, what’s going to be our internal motivation to want to continue to be successful?”

The two sides will learn their CFP fate Sunday, Dec. 3, at noon.

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