Three weeks, three wins, and 178 FBS-leading points weren't enough for people to give Georgia credit. "They haven't played anybody" was the refrain surrounding the No. 2 Bulldogs heading into the Week 4 matchup with Oklahoma.
After a 41-13 dismantling of the Sooners, it's safe to say that Georgia not only played somebody, but they destroyed that somebody.
Georgia was finally presented with the kind of opponent people said it hadn't faced, and the result was anything but ambiguous. Question answered. No more callers, please.
Taking down a team like Oklahoma by 28 points is a statement, even when they are unranked. Georgia looked in control of the game from the start, and just as they've done all season, they played with physicality and intensity.
Georgia entered averaging an FBS-best 59.3 points and 539 yards per game, but Tennessee State, Western Kentucky, and Arkansas weren't convincing skeptics, and we'll give them that.
But now those skeptics need to give Georgia its flowers. Oklahoma was different. The Sooners came in 2-1, with their lone loss being a 17-10 road game at Michigan, and their defense had allowed just 7.7 points and 215.3 yards per game.
And Georgia obliterated those numbers.
Playing Oklahoma was supposed to tell us something about Georgia. It did.
Oklahoma's welcome to Sanford Stadium for the first time was typically Bulldog-rude.
Georgia led the Sooners 28-0 at halftime. Oklahoma turned it over four times and managed only 65 rushing yards. Georgia's defense even supplied a touchdown of its own on a forced fumble scoop-and-score.
Nobody has to suddenly declare Oklahoma the best team on Georgia's schedule simply because the Bulldogs beat them. That's not the point. The point is that Georgia finally got the measuring-stick game everyone demanded -- and won it by four touchdowns.
This wasn't an "oops, almost" game. It wasn't a struggle. It was barely a fight. Georgia didn't need some frantic fourth-quarter finish to establish superiority. The Bulldogs were up 7-0 after one quarter, 28-0 at halftime, and 31-6 entering the fourth quarter.
Georgia played somebody. Then Georgia made that somebody look like everybody else.
This isn't a declaration that Georgia should be just handed the SEC and national championship crowns now. There will be bigger games. There will be better opponents. And eventually, some team may expose weaknesses that Oklahoma simply couldn't.
But that's an entirely different conversation.
For three weeks, Georgia's dominance supposedly didn't count because of who was standing on the other side of the field. Oklahoma was supposed to change that.
It did. Just not in the way Georgia's doubters hoped.
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