If it wasn’t for a phone call to Michigan coaches, Kirby Smart and his Georgia Bulldogs may not have beaten Alabama for the 2021 College Football Playoff national championship.

Smart, who has won back-to-back titles, said the first title – a win over Nick Saban and the Crimson Tide – was partly due to information received from Michigan’s coaching.

The feedback was about how his team was sluggish.

“Yeah that was big, that probably I think gave us the biggest difference in the final game,” Smart said during an episode of “The Steakhouse podcast,” per 247 Sports. “That was almost a phone call that didn’t happen. There’s not that long from the semifinal game to the final game and you’ve got to use your time wisely. And a lot of times when you look back and talk to the opposing team you just played, you can gain some kind of insight maybe they had on you, but that was a key ingredient.”

Smart said what he learned from the Michigan staff was not only valuable but motivation for the Tide.

“Talking to (Michigan), they had talked to Alabama who had just beaten us in the SEC Championship. So, they wanted information from Alabama, so some of the information we gathered from Michigan came from information they gathered from Alabama,” Smart said. “It was very unique to hear that perspective and they gave us a little extra incentive and motivation from things Alabama had said about us and I was able to parlay that into some motivation for our guys.”

Mark Heim is a sports reporter for The Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Mark_Heim.