Georgia lost for the first (and only) time this season in the SEC Championship Game, when Alabama picked up a lopsided 41-24 victory in Atlanta.

That means that the Bulldogs have yet to win any significant hardware despite having their best season in a long time. Of course, that could all change in Indianapolis on Monday night, where the Dawgs and Tide will meet again, this time with a national championship on the line.

During media availability on Wednesday, Georgia LB Nolan Smith gave an open, honest answer about how painful it was to lose to Alabama the first time around (via AL.com):

“Want the honest to God truth?” Smith said Wednesday. “I cried. I’m 20 now. I’ve been playing football since I was four — 16 years, haven’t won anything. Haven’t won a championship. I won a couple of bowl games but anything big, any championship, I never won yet.”

LB Quay Walker, who has been around Georgia for a while, also said the loss to the Tide stung:

“I felt pretty bad,” Walker said. “Since being here I’m 0-3 against them. So that felt pretty bad. But knowing that we didn’t have any sacks, knowing we didn’t have any sacks on defense, any turnovers, more than likely you’re not going to win that game if you don’t do those types of things.

“So at the end of the day I pretty much already knew. They were pretty much the better team that day because we didn’t execute on those types of things. As bad as I want to say it hurt, as it did, I kind of pretty much already knew why we didn’t win the game. I knew the mistakes we already made that led up to that.”

Can the Dawgs flip the script this time around? As Walker points out, that’s going to be determined by how well the Georgia defense plays.