Sunday Hangover: Must Love Dawgs
(And the SEC)

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For the first three weeks of the season, poll voters treated the Georgia Bulldogs like Uga VII (or possibly Najeh Davenport) left a present on their shoe. The Bulldogs hammered Georgia Southern, walloped Central Michigan and beat South Carolina on the road in a bare knuckles SEC brawl, but if you judged solely based on their slide in the polls, they ranked somewhere on the respect-o-meter between, say, Shaquille O'Neal's musical career and Goober Grape.

So a funny thing happened when the Bulldogs traveled to Arizona for their biggest test of the season.

They passed. Easily. And we don't mean in that composed-by-Jim Harrick Jr. way or monitored by Florida State tutors route.

The Bulldogs did this one fair and as square as Jim Tressel's wardrobe.

And so did the rest of the conference.

Sure, the SEC would've been hard pressed to embarrass itself like Ohio State.They could have starred, written and directed Waterworld II while wearing a leisure suit and taken photos with Chris Cooley and Ronaldo's transvestites and not embarrassed yourself as much as Ohio State.

Still, there were plenty of reasons to think at least one team might make the league consider relegation to the ACC (or the Lingerie Football League, should the ACC be too humiliating). But from the desert to the loveliest village on the plains and the shore of the Tennessee River, the SEC didn't just deliver. It arrived.

There was Knowshon Moreno's leaping touchdown in which he spent so much time in the air that the leather in his hand should have counted as a checked bag. There was a quarterback greener than the money in a Clemson lineman's hands lifting LSU past Auburn, a team which did more than enough to justify its lofty rank even in defeat. And the Florida defense put enough pressure on Tennessee to turn Phil Fulmer's flop sweat into diamonds.

(And even the Buckeyes paid homage to the SEC, starting Tyrelle Pryor before the freshman has even taken a college class at Ohio State. Scoring four touchdowns while not attending classes, what's more big-time football than that?)

But no one was more impressive than Georgia. Waiter, your finest bottle of respect please?

If you questioned their defense after giving up 290 yards and 21 second-half points to Georgia Southern, the Bulldogs had an answer Saturday night. Georgia was already one of the nation's stingiest run defenses, giving up just 59 yards a game before kickoff. Georgia gave up just four yards to the Sun Devils.

Think about that. Four yards. Twelve feet. That's less than the length of a Hummer. That means if you started rushing at Yao Ming's toes, you could barely make it back to his kneecaps. Sure, the Sun Devils played without starting running back Keegan Herring, but Charlie Weis on crutches could've jumped further than Arizona State moved the football.

On the opposite side of the trenches, the Bulldogs broke in two new starters on the offensive line and still blew open holes worthy of the Grand Canyon state as Georgia rolled up 176 rushing yards. Arizona State's sack artist Dexter Davis, who could've been the scariest thing to happen to SEC quarterbacks this side of a Dave Clawson offense, not only didn't register a sack, he didn't make a single tackle. As a team, the Sun Devils recorded just one sack.

If you thought the Bulldogs offense was just Knowshon Moreno and 10 guys recording his runs to YouTube, they had an answer for that too. freshman AJ Green caught eight passes for 159 yards while Matt Stafford threw for a career best 285 yards. The score was 21-3 at halftime and 27-10 when it was over. If not for 104 yards in penalties and a few conservative field goals, it could've been as lopsided as the federal deficit.

And if you thought one narrow victory over South Carolina meant this team just couldn't compete, we'd like to remind you that we've seen this script before, deep in the annals of college football.

The year was 2007. An anxious nation wondered just who could keep up with the Kardashians. People everywhere punched themselves for realizing they knew who Spencer Pratt is. David Beckham arrived in America to save jersey sales and Tom Cruise, and Joe Paterno turned a spry one-thousand-and-eight.

And on the football field a talented LSU team was slugging its way to the national title.

In Week 4, backup South Carolina quarterback Chris Smelley sliced the LSU defense for 174 yards and a touchdown in less than a half as the Tigers earned a less than awe-inspiring win over South Carolina at home. One game later, they surrendered six sacks to a 1-2 Tulane team and led by a single point at the half. When the SEC schedule kicked in, they needed a series of fourth down conversions to beat Florida, a touchdown pass with one second left to beat Auburn and two fourth-quarter interceptions by a then maligned defense to win the league title over Tennessee. Along the way, the Tigers lost twice to middleweights Kentucky and Arkansas.

Even last year's national champions didn't always have the look of a champion.

Saturday's win doesn't mean the Bulldogs should be jumped back to No. 1 or even quite the equivalent of LSU's plastering of Virginia Tech last season. But it does mean it's time to start talking about Georgia not in terms of what it's not, but of what it is, which is a team you'd rather sit on steak knives than face this season.

Keep winning against a schedule that's harder than an Asher Allen hit and we'll be talking about them as a national champion. After all, style points are for every one else. The league and the Dawgs proved that this weekend. All that matters in the SEC is winning.

And if the Bulldogs proved anything Saturday night, it's that they've got a great shot to do that anywhere and against anyone, even if they make Paris Hilton seem well respected by comparison.

• 1. Oklahoma Sooners: The Sooners were idle this week, giving them plenty of time to play a little football and a lot of golf, or as it's known, Ty Willingham fantasy camp.
• 1a. USC: It's another off week for the men of Troy, marking the least use of Trojans since Travis Henry's entire career.
  
• 3. Georgia: Star freshman receiver A.J. Green will get the headlines, but a pair of freshmen deserve as much credit. Justin Anderson and Ben Jones stepped into the offensive line and kept Arizona State out of the backfield. The duo are an excellent example of why Georgia is a national title contender and not just a good SEC time anymore. The depth of Mark Richt's recruiting means there's always another blue-chipper to bring in at every position. In fact, we might consider Trinton Sturdivant completely replaced, if only we could see this move from someone.
• 4. Florida Gators: The French built a $3.8 billion supercollider to simulate the Big Bang. Florida has Tim Tebow. The Heisman winner may not be putting up the 51-touchdown pace of last season, but is there any doubt Tebow can crush linebackers like soda cans again when Urban Meyer needs him?
• 5. Missouri Tigers: The Good: Chase Daniel completes a Big-12 record 20 straight passes. The Bad: The Tigers defense gives up 287 yards to Buffalo, which is unfortunately the fewest number of yards they've given up all year. The Ugly: The Tigers' defense is 77th in the nation in yardage allowed despite playing Illinois and three tune-ups.
• 6. LSU Tigers: If Georgia was the most impressive team of the weekend, it was only by a nose over the Tigers. Jarrett Lee shook off an 0-5 first half, including the worst thrown ball since Mr. Burn's opening pitch, to lead LSU to a comeback win in the fourth quarter.
• 7. Texas Tech Red Raiders: It's another week of gaudy statistics for Graham Harrell, but the Red Raiders' ground game has quietly evolved into a threat on its own. Texas Tech rushed for 179 yards and has topped the 100-yard mark in every game this season, which is twice the number of 100-yard games the Red Raiders managed in all of 2007.
  
• 8. Texas Longhorns: The Texas secondary needs to mature in a hurry. They're 103rd in the nation in passing yardage allowed and gave up more than 300 yards to lowly Rice.
• 9. Brigham Young: How high are the expectations around this team? The Broncos won 44-0 over Wyoming and were upset because the offense started slowly.
• 10. Alabama Crimson Tide: How dominant was Alabama's win over Arkansas? Head coach Nick Saban reportedly briefly considered a smile. But two gaffes on fourth down leading to the Hogs' only touchdowns and a tepid performance by John Parker Wilson probably crushed that impulse.
• 11. Auburn Tigers: As always, this game proves to be tighter than the Australian women's basketball uniform and almost as enjoyable to watch. Maybe Tommy Tuberville isn't out to kill offense after all.
• 12. Ohio State: Terrelle Pryor throws four touchdowns in his first game in charge of the Buckeyes. Here's hoping this leads to more Corvette photos.
• 13. Wisconsin Badgers: The Badgers were idle this week, but we're still reveling in Bill Rentmeester's lone carry last week, when the fullback carried four tacklers eight yards in something that looked more like a strongman competition event and less like a football play.
• 14. Penn State: Joe Paterno spent the second half of the rout upstairs in the press box after suffering from a sore leg, and not apparently after heading toward a bright light.
• 15. Wake Forest:No team is as opportunistic as the Deacons, who force seven Florida State turnovers to take control of the race for the ACC championship-slash-participation ribbon.
  
• 16. Illinois: A generous ranking given last week's effort against a team with a dash in its name, but next week's showdown with Penn State will clear up the Illini's future nicely.