Many of us, myself included, read a bit too much into the convincing win over Oklahoma State. The young Dawgs had bested a quality opponent, and they were going to be just fine. Stafford was brilliant, the defense was up to the job, and receivers caught the ball. That’s how it would be all season, right?

The win over Alabama means many things, but in the end it simply means that the Dawgs get to move on to the next challenge. It gives us a push to be forward-looking. Had the Dawgs lost, the future would be on hold as we scrutinized everything that could be wrong with the program. Not many people are talking about 0-5 vs. the SEC East this morning.

There are a lot of teams who can look impressive on a given weekend. I don’t mean to downplay the significance of the win, but I find myself hesitant accepting the common chorus that the Dawgs "grew up" at Alabama. Certainly winning in that type of environment takes a certain level of maturity and pride from a team still licking wounds from the South Carolina loss. Avoiding the ups and downs from week to week will tell us much more about how "grown up" this team is than a single week’s result.

As teams like Louisville, Florida, and Nebraska so graciously demonstrated on Saturday, the toughest part of being a top team isn’t getting up for the big games. It’s maintaining that level of play each week and being able to come down from the big wins as quickly as you bounce back from the disappointing losses. ESPN called this weekend’s games "Hangover Saturday," but Georgia’s hangover test will come a week later as we welcome the Rebels to Athens. Their performance against Florida was more than enough to make sure that the Alabama celebration was brief.

Georgia has shown twice that they are capable of playing good football against a diverse set of challenges. The question going forward is how many more times this season they can meet or exceed that level of play.