Safety Lewis Cine won’t lie.

The loss to Alabama in the SEC championship still stings.

However, as the Bulldogs (12-1) turn their attention toward Michigan in College Football Playoff's Orange Bowl, the junior said he and his teammates are in a good mental place.

“It’s a bitter taste-type loss, but it also wakes you up. It kind of shakes you back to reality, in that you realize you’re not as great as maybe you thought you were,” Cine said Wednesday. “It pushes us to tighten everything up in terms of how we play going forward, because now it’s a one-game season. You lose and you’re out. We have to make sure we take these next games coming up seriously, and put everything we have into it.”

With final exams, the team has only had two light practices. Orange Bowl workouts will get going in earnest on Thursday according to head coach Kirby Smart.

"We haven't done a lot. It's really good to get them away, focus on finals, focus on their health, focus on other things they've got going on,” Smart said. “To get somebody's total focus, you can't sustain that for four weeks; you can't sustain that for three weeks. You want to build to a point of getting back to an in-season mode. I don't think you can continue doing what you did in-season for three or four weeks, because the game is too far away. We've taken a mental check to see what kind of physical and mental shape we're in.”

So far, Smart likes what he’s seen.

“Our guys are in a really good place. We've slowly started to come back. The two practices we had, had high energy, and they've done an awesome job, they've been great,” he said. “It's more about what they're going to do from this point forward as we get into things the next couple of weeks."

Fans wanting a straight answer from Smart on his quarterbacks, specifically as it pertains to Stetson Bennett and JT Daniels, can forget it.

He’s not going to answer.

Wednesday, Smart was asked specifically why Bennett continues to play over Daniels, who has not started since Georgia’s win at Vanderbilt back in September.

Smart was also asked whether Daniels would receive reps with the ones, and was again quizzed on what Bennett brings to the team that Daniels does not.

"Yeah, I don't know if I can answer all of those questions. There were like three of them in there. At the end of the day, I think we have four really good quarterbacks in our system. I really feel confident in four guys that can play quarterback for us,” Smart said. “I continue to say and repeatedly say that all those guys are evaluated each and every day.”

For reporters (and fans) looking for specific answers, it’s obvious by now that none will be forthcoming.

“Stetson did some really good things in the Alabama game. He made a couple of bonehead plays as well, that he has not played and that he has not done in the past. Just like we reassessed every single position, just like I said after the game, we reassess everything by how you practice, what you do, and everything you do,” Smart said. “His feet have been a blessing for us. His ability to run, scramble, make things open, make plays with his feet have all been good. He made a couple of poor decisions in the last game, but he is not the only one that did that. We will continue to evaluate it. I hope that answers it for you."

In his statement last week congratulating Dan Lanning on getting the head coach job at Oregon, Smart stated that Will Muschamp and Glenn Schumann would move forward as co-defensive coordinators.

Wednesday, Smart was asked to clarify if that means moving forward, i.e., past the Orange Bowl with Michigan.

"The clarification is both Will and Glenn will be co-coordinators,” said Smart, who also revealed that Lanning had several interviews over the past couple of years for other jobs.

“(Dan) Lanning has done a tremendous job here, he is far and away one of the most loyal, hardworking guys that I've been around. He's bright, energetic, a good teacher. He'll do wonderful things at Oregon,” Smart said. “I'm so happy for him that he got an opportunity for a job like that. He'd had several interviews, several opportunities that he wasn't interested in, some that he was, and it was one he thought was a great opportunity. I'm glad he's staying on with us to help us finish this thing out. He's done a great job."

… On the physicality of Michigan: "Great running game, great backs. Three really good backs, really physical. Just extremely physical at the point of attack. Two quarterbacks, one's really athletic, the other is athletic, and they use both of those guys. They're doing a really good job. They keep you off-balance and they have great play-action game, great use of their tight ends. Defensively, they've come a long way from the Michigan I knew two or three years ago when we studied them in off-season, when they had a lot of sacks and a lot of turnovers. (Mike) Macdonald has done a lot to change that, and you can see they're playing really, really hard, very sound on defense."

… On the Rose Bowl experience helping him prepare for the Orange Bowl: "There is a huge significance in every game. Just making sure we are clear on that, because I know there are people that think the bowl games don't matter, but they matter. Certainly, being in the CFP heightens the attention to it, and we have a really solid plan. I was able to be a part of that CFP process while at Alabama, was able to do it here, and we feel really comfortable with the prep. We build up to a point, and then we have a Christmas break, and then we have a game week at the location. When we go to the location, we are honed in, we are focused, just like we would be for a bowl game. I think the intensity of the practice and the awareness of the situation of your leaders on your team is probably the biggest difference.

“People are really locked in and focused with an attention to detail, just like they should be for a bowl game. You don't treat things differently, but our guys are aware of that, and you prepare in a very similar fashion in terms of getting ready. Right now, we're actually trying to get our team better, get our twos and threes as many reps as possible, because it's like an extra spring practice. I mean we'll have 14-15 practices before we play, and that's literally an extra spring practice."

… On the historic defensive performance this season: "I think it's week-to-week. I think it is really how your defense plays. Did our defense keep us in some games where we didn't have to shoot out? Sure. We did that some this year. We also had some where people scored. There were times at the Tennessee game it was looking like that. Certainty, the Alabama game would be one. A lot of that is based on what we did, meaning, 'What did we do?' We didn't play this coverage right or we didn't play that coverage right, and when you don't do those things, you give up big plays. When you give up big plays, you have to score points, so it's two-fold. It's total complementary football, and the one thing we did really well this year was play complementary football and we didn't do that the last time out."