ATLANTA - During Friday's Southeastern Conference championship game luncheon, the crowd of 1,000 or so gathered inside a Hyatt Regency ballroom was asked to submit questions to the competing coaches: Auburn's Gus Malzahn and Georgia's Kirby Smart.
One of the questions posed to Malzahn began "To the best coach in college football," to which he replied with a small smile, "For this week," knowing well all fans' fickleness these days.
And sure enough, at 7:32 p.m. Saturday inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium, "this week" ended for Malzahn.
Thanks to Smart's Bulldogs posting a 28-7 victory to earn sweet revenge for last month's 23-point loss at Auburn, Malzahn probably won't even be judged as the best coach in the SEC today, that honor quite fairly going to the UGA alum Smart, who took just two years to deliver Bulldog Nation its first SEC title since 2005.
Another reason to praise Smart, who spent nine years working under Nick Saban at Alabama before returning to Georgia, is the fact that while this was the seventh time two teams that had faced each other during the regular season met again in the league title game, it was just the second time (LSU over Tennessee in 2001 was the first) that the regular-season loser prevailed in the rematch.
Now, of course, the question is whether Smart's Bulldogs can win the school's first national championship since the 1980 season, when the remarkable Herschel Walker was in the backfield and Vince Dooley was head coach.
"All champions can run (the football) and almost all of them have great senior leadership," Dooley said Saturday as he watched yellow, white and blue confetti (the SEC's colors) fall from the stadium's roof. "This team has exceptional senior leadership."
Actually, for almost every game except that first Auburn contest down on the Plains, the Dawgs have had an abundance of good rushing and great leadership. They led the SEC in rushing for all games with a 265.7-yard average. They ran for 238 yards against the Tigers, who began this game as the league's third-best rushing defense, giving up only 125.9 yards a contest.
As for Georgia's leadership, 12 seniors or graduate students and 13 juniors are listed on the two-deep chart.
Said Smart of the leadership displayed in running off 28 straight points in the title game after falling in a 7-0 hole: "These guys, incredible leaders from day one, bought in. I know how much it meant for these guys to be in this game. I know how excited they are to play again against whoever, whenever. They enjoy being together, and I always say chemistry outweighs competence."
Now 12-1 for the season and having run roughshod over the one team to beat it, it's difficult to imagine any scenario by which Georgia won't join defending national champ Clemson, Oklahoma and the Big Ten champion or Alabama in the fourth annual College Football Playoff.
And Georgia will be an exceedingly tough out for both the reasons Dooley mentioned and one he didn't - true freshman quarterback Jake Fromm.
"I don't think enough can be said about the response he had," Smart said after Fromm went 16-of-22 for 183 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. "He makes a lot of decisions to put these guys in the right play. He made some throws - 16 of 22. That's pretty good numbers for a freshman in an SEC championship."
It's also a pretty good performance to win an SEC title in one's second year as a head coach.
"(Current Miami Hurricanes coach) Mark Richt won it (at Georgia) in his second year, too," said Dooley, who pointed out that he won a share of the league title during his third year as the Bulldogs boss in 1966.
And while Smart seemed genuinely touched by bringing an SEC title to his alma mater so quickly, he also admitted that the pressure to achieve success can be overwhelming.
"Bo Jackson came up to me before the game," said Smart, referring to the all-time Auburn great. "He's my childhood idol. I worshipped Bo Jackson. I had Bo Jackson posters, baseball cards. I had over 300 baseball cards of Bo Jackson.
"He comes up to me before the game and says, 'A lot of pressure in this job, isn't it?' I said, '(Heck) yeah, it is.'"
And that pressure surely will grow to repeat in what figures to be a weak SEC East a year from now. Especially if Georgia ultimately falls short of its national title dreams, that 1980 title already 36 years in the rearview mirror.
But within a Mercedes-Benz Stadium that was at least 65 percent filled with Georgia fans - "Dan Quinn called me," Smart said of the Atlanta Falcons coach, "and said he already painted all the seats red and black for us" - there was also a sense that Georgia could return to this fantastic venue for the national championship game on Jan. 8 if it can win a semifinal in either the Sugar Bowl or Rose Bowl one week earlier.
Getting revenge on Auburn may have been nice, but winning it all in your home state, less than an hour from campus, has also become something of a goal for the Bulldogs.
"Yes, sir," replied junior wideout Terry Godwin, who caught both a touchdown pass and a two-point conversion against Auburn, when asked if the Dawgs could return to Mercedes-Benz for the national championship game. "Absolutely. Yes, sir."
At least for this week, if not this entire month, no one dressed in red, black and silver will want to consider anything less.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com