For my money, Georgia’s Deandre Baker is the best cornerback in the country. The best talker, too. Oh, did he put on a show Saturday.

Baker set the tone early in the Bulldogs’ methodical 41-17 beatdown of then-No. 24 South Carolina that wasn’t really that close. He picked off a deflected pass from Gamecocks quarterback Jake Bentley on their first possession and then took it back almost all the way to the house for a touchdown.

Baker made a dumb mistake by dropping the ball at the 1-yard line, but thankfully teammate Juwan Taylor scooped it up for the score. It was 7-0 Georgia before the offense even took the field.

It seemed like that was Baker’s only mistake all day. In the first big test for Georgia’s oft-questioned secondary, they passed with flying colors. Baker was sensational all day, shutting down Carolina’s Deebo Samuel, a preseason All-American himself. Freshman corner Tyson Campbell got burned a time or two, but he still made plays and his first big dose of SEC football will surely help going forward.

And safeties J.R. Reed and Richard LeCounte? They were everywhere, blowing up running backs and wide receivers alike.

If you thought this group was going to be a weakness of this team, forget about it. They were that good Saturday, and they will continue to get better.

Baker’s big day was something special. He posted some numbers, mostly notably only allowing 4 yards after the catch. His cover skills are great, but he’s a sure tackler too.

“I got to show the world, whoever doubted me, I know what I can do. I’ve got to show them. Now they see,” said Baker, who refused to engage in the social media chatter before the game, but didn’t mind crowing afterward.  “I don’t really pay attention to that, but you know it’s hard not to when everybody in the country is blowing up my phone saying what some other guy said.”

Samuel only had 33 reception yards Saturday and Baker clearly won that battle. So he earned the right to enjoy it afterward. And he did.

We’ll give him a pass on the blunder at the goal line, just because the outcome was never in doubt. It’s good that he can learn from his mistake in a moment that really didn’t matter.

His mates in the secondary were great, too.  This was clearly a learning experience for Campbell. He was the corner who got burned on the play where Samuel threw a touchdown pass. Campbell, the 5-star true freshman from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., left his man, Bryan Edwards, and got beat for a score. Edwards got the best of him a few other times as well, but all it all, he played well.

“I told him, ‘You have to have amnesia.’ It happens to the best of the corners,” Baker said after the touchdown. “You learn from it and you just move on.”

And he did. “He was great. He went back out there. He was ready,” Baker said.

Reed and LeCounte both made big plays from their safety spots.

All of this isn’t to say this group was perfect, because they weren’t. South Carolina completed some passes, and that will happen. We worried about that from the beginning of camp, that veteran quarterbacks like Bentley — and Missouri’s Drew Lock in two weeks —would be patient enough to take what Georgia gives them. Bentley threw for 269 yards on 47 attempts, but the game was never in doubt.

The number that matters is the win, not the yardage. There’s still a ways to go, but that’s true with every position group on every team.

“We got loose (Saturday) in some of our coverage, and they made some plays, we’ve got to get better in our pass coverage, and we’ve got to get better in our pass rush,” said Georgia coach Kirby Smart, whose team had  just one sack.

“We’ve got a long way to go, I know you guys are going to write this is a great win, it is a great win, but at the end of the day, we have to get better,” Smart said. “We made too many bonehead mistakes, so that when we play a better team, we will struggle so that’s the goal for us, to get better.”