Like many, I assumed a drop-off was inevitable.

Georgia had, for my money, the best offense in school history in 2022. The Dawgs lit up ranked foes in a way that we’d never seen, and Stetson Bennett IV couldn’t have been more in sync with offensive coordinator Todd Monken. I thought, as much as I liked Carson Beck, there was no way that he would thrive in the same way that Bennett did after Kirby Smart’s hire of Mike Bobo. Surely, there’d be some growing pains.

To be fair, there was. For about a month. In that first month of the season, Georgia’s offense dug itself holes against the likes of South Carolina and Auburn. We saw the Dawgs score 1 touchdown in the first 25 minutes against UT Martin and Beck didn’t look comfortable with the opening scripts that Bobo dialed up. There was a hesitancy to let it rip, and the downfield chances felt few and far between.

That might as well have been decades ago.

The Georgia offense we’re seeing now with Beck and Bobo is every bit as impressive as the one we saw with Bennett and Monken.

The latest example of that came on Saturday in Knoxville. Beck played nearly a perfect game.

It didn’t matter that the Vols’ first play from scrimmage was a 75-yard touchdown run by Jaylen Wright that sent Rocky Top into a frenzy. It didn’t matter that Ladd McConkey (stiffness), RaRa Thomas (foot) and Tate Ratledge (knee) were all sidelined at some point. It didn’t matter that Georgia had just 3.9 yards per carry.

Nope. When Beck and Bobo are in lockstep like that, forget about it. Georgia is unstoppable.

We’re seeing an offensive coordinator who has learned what his quarterback does best, and successfully built a game plan around it. Simple, right? Go look at the Vols, led by a coach with 5 consecutive top-8 offenses, and tell me that it’s easy to figure out what a quarterback does best. It’s not. Bobo deserves a ton of credit for that.

So does Beck, who has been masterful at navigating the pocket and keeping his eyes downfield. Georgia didn’t allow Beck to get sacked for the 7th time in 11 games. Yes, the Dawgs have been excellent up front. That’s also the byproduct of Beck avoiding bad habits like looking down or drifting to his right instead of stepping up into a clean pocket.

It also helps Beck and Bobo when they’ve got weapons galore. It was an afterthought that Georgia’s receivers were banged up — Brock Bowers also had a brief scare when he came up limping on that surgically repaired ankle — because of how dominant Dillon Bell was.

Bell filled McConkey’s role in the loudest way possible. He caught a back-shoulder throw to keep the chains moving on third down, he found pay dirt on a drag route on a goal-to-go situation, and just in case that wasn’t enough, he tossed a halfback pass to Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint for 6.

Yep. Bobo was in his bag on that one.

Add that one to the “Paul Hornung Award” file for Bell, who seemed plenty engaged for a guy who didn’t have a scrimmage touch the last 2 games.

Not to take anything away from Georgia’s Swiss Army knife, but Bell is capable of stepping in and having a game like that because of Beck and Bobo. Scheme allows Bell to line up all over the formation. Poise allows a quarterback to give Bell a chance to make a play, either in space or in coverage.

Beck had that in spades with what was easily the best true road game of his brief career as a starter. If we’re excluding Vandy — the Commodores did have a chance to make it a 1-score game after a Beck interception — that was only the second hostile atmosphere he faced. Unlike the Auburn game, which saw Georgia come back thanks to the Beck-Bowers connection, the veteran seemed ready from the jump. To close the first half, Beck completed his last 11 passes for 138 yards and a pair of scores. Surgical, he was.

Georgia had a 24-10 halftime lead thanks to 210 first-half passing yards from Beck, who completed 85% of those attempts.

“Carson Beck has gone crazy,” Gary Danielson said on the CBS broadcast coming out of the break.

Danielson was right about that. Really, you could argue that Beck going crazy in the last month is why the Dawgs didn’t just survive that daunting stretch, which included 3 ranked foes. They dominated and watched their quarterback become a star.

In the last 4 games since Bowers suffered the injury against Vanderbilt, Beck averaged 10.2 yards per attempt with just 1 interception for a UGA offense that averaged 41 points per contest. Again, that’s against 3 AP-ranked foes and a Florida team that was first in the “receiving votes” category at the time of the matchup.

A year removed from Georgia averaging an FBS-best 46 points per game against teams in the final AP Top 25, this group is again poised to average 40-plus against ranked foes. That seems impossible with how flawless Bennett and Monken were against quality competition, most notably in a 65-7 national championship beatdown for the ages.

Beck’s post-bye brilliance under Bobo doesn’t guarantee another 65-7 beatdown, nor is it a given that the Dawgs even win another SEC crown. Alabama might have a thing or 2 to say about that.

But at this point, what’s the resistance to Georgia doing this again? Bobo skepticism should now be a thing of the past. Even as a loud preseason skeptic, I can admit that. If you, reader of this column, cannot admit that you haven’t been paying attention.

Beck and Bobo have the Georgia freight train rolling. Tennessee saw what happens when you’re stuck on the tracks.

All aboard? Good.