It was a fair question.

When Georgia confirmed that Brock Bowers would miss several games with an ankle injury, the concern was valid. Losing Bowers — the All-American tight end who just might be the best ever at the position — was bigger than any individual injury that the Dawgs had to overcome during this 3-year run of dominance. It was more significant than George Pickens going down with a torn ACL in the spring of 2021, and as great as Nolan Smith was as UGA’s senior captain linebacker, his season-ending pec injury wasn’t quite at the level of Bowers’.

The question was obvious — how would UGA respond?

To be clear, “how,” was the key word in that sentence. Notice that you didn’t see an “if” in that sentence.

Kirby Smart’s team was always going to respond to not having No. 19. We just didn’t know what it would look like.

On Saturday in a blowout win against Florida in Jacksonville, UGA made it look easy. That is, life without Bowers.

Don’t get it twisted. This isn’t the place where you’ll see an argument wherein Bowers’ role is diminished. For my money, he’s the best player in college football and that entire offense was built around him.

This is, however, the place where we need to remember something.

Smart is the same guy who watched 15 players get drafted from a national championship team, and he responded by going 15-0 with as lopsided of a national championship as we’ve ever seen. There are coaches who can preach “next man up,” and there are coaches who might as well have it tattooed on their forehead.

Smart is the latter.

“It’s not about one guy,” Smart said before Saturday’s game. “It’s about the sum of our parts.”

The sum of those parts was scoring 36 consecutive points against a Florida team that probably had visions of an upset after it scored an opening-drive touchdown in Jacksonville for the first time since 2009. It was Smart’s first time failing to score first against Florida.

Eh, that’s overrated.

You know who doesn’t look overrated? The No. 1 rated tight end from the 2022 class, Oscar Delp, AKA the next man up in the Georgia tight end room. Whether Delp was doing his best Bowers impression or just simply being the player UGA fans hoped he’d be, he was brilliant. His first catch of the day was straight out of the Bowers highlight reel:

Delp only finished the afternoon with 2 catches for 31 yards, but what the box score didn’t show was his impact in the ground game. He made a key block to free up Daijun Edwards for the first of his 2 rushing scores.

In order for Georgia to continue the nation’s longest winning streak — the Dawgs won their 25th consecutive game Saturday — it was never going to be about Delp becoming the second coming of Bowers. Flashes of that would be great, but remember what Smart said — “the sum of our parts.”

Turns out, the sum of UGA’s offensive parts is still pretty darn impressive. For the first time since returning from his back injury, Ladd McConkey looked like the 2022 version of himself. He stepped up with a game-high 135 receiving yards and a score, which matched his career-high from the Auburn game 2 years ago. Dominic Lovett, who led Mizzou in receiving last year before transferring to UGA, picked an ideal time to have his biggest game in the red and black. Lovett finished with 4 catches for 83 yards for a Georgia offense that racked up 486 yards.

Of course, a major part of the Bowers-less equation was QB Carson Beck. In a homecoming game, it was fair to question if he’d look as poised as he did with Bowers as his safety blanket, especially if things stayed tight late like they did at Auburn.

Yeah, Beck passed that test. With flying colors.

It wasn’t just that the box score looked good (Beck completed 19-of-28 passes for 315 yards with 2 scores and 0 turnovers). It was how comfortable he looked avoiding pressure. Beck didn’t take a single sack, and when he did face pressure, he looked like a 3rd-year starter, not someone in his 8th career start.

Yep, that’ll play.

So, too, will a defense that responds like that. The post-opening drive response was vintage Smart. Florida freshman Tre Wilson had 4 catches for 62 yards and that opening score. The rest of the day, he had 13 yards. Even more impressive, he caught 7 more passes, but he had little room to work with.

The same could be said of Trevor Etienne on the pivotal play of the day. Smael Mondon totally bottled up the Florida running back before he could attempt a 4th down pass on a trick play that fell flat.

That’s the type of discipline that we’ve come to expect from Georgia. Discipline isn’t limited to Xs and Os. It extends to sticking to a game plan and not wilting when tasked with an enormous task.

Smart and the Dawgs still have an enormous task at hand. Winning 3 consecutive titles is something that hasn’t been done in 87 years. In the short term, the enormous task is to weather the storm without Bowers, and doing so against some formidable foes. The Dawgs’ next 3 opponents are all ranked, and they entered the weekend a combined 18-4. The Dawgs faced a similar stretch in the middle of the 2021 season, but that was with a healthy Bowers.

Bowers stood on the sideline in his jersey and a wristband with the play-calls on it. His presence will still be felt, no matter how long he’s out.

Saturday, we saw the best version of Georgia. It dominated what appeared to be an emerging Florida team, and it crushed all hope by day’s end. There’s no guarantee that it’ll look like that the rest of the way. Odds are that the Dawgs will be pushed to their limit at some point without their star. That might’ve been the case with Bowers, too.

But if there was anything question about his absence halting the freight train that Smart built in Athens, well, let’s just say it was answered.

Bowers or not, it still might be best to steer clear of the tracks.