You saw the celebratory tweets. Heck, I even sent some.

The SEC went 8-2 (so far) during bowl season, and seven of the wins were blowouts.

SEC defenses made three potential first-round quarterbacks look like, well, like they made a lot of SEC quarterbacks look this season: overmatched.

What does all of this success mean moving forward? Does it even matter?

We’ll know more Monday night, when the SEC’s season will be defined — and remembered — by Alabama’s performance in the national championship game.

If the Tide beats Clemson, the SEC’s 9-2 bowl season will be viewed as one of the most dominant in history. If the Tide blows out Clemson, it might be viewed as the most dominant.

If Alabama loses … the SEC loses. That’s simply how these narratives go: You’re as good as your biggest game.

But that’s a macro perspective.

Regardless of what happens Monday night — Alabama will be just as much of a threat next season either way — several SEC teams have reasons to believe even better days lie ahead in 2016.

None more so than Tennessee, which physically dominated a Northwestern team that usually does the pushing and shoving.

Vols running back and Outback Bowl MVP Jalen Hurd didn’t need to be prompted when asked what their 45-6 beatdown meant.

Hurd said he was well aware that the next season’s national championship game will be played on the very same Raymond James Stadium turf on which he just ran up and down, gaining 130 yards against a defense that held Heisman candidate Christian McCaffrey to 66.

“We’re already prepared for it,” Hurd said.

Hurd enthusiastically welcomed the expectations that no doubt will greet the Volunteers when they arrive in Birmingham for the SEC Media Days.

He wasn’t alone. Coach Butch Jones walked reporters through the process of winning, explaining how Tennessee had done everything necessary to set up the final step — surviving success.

“And now the fourth is building off those wins, surviving success, building off success,” Jones said. “How do you handle success?… We can’t forget the blueprint of what got us to this point. Our habits, our style of play, all the things that are important to playing winning football.”

Those traits — and Hurd, standout QB Joshua Dobbs and menacing DE Derek Barnett — will be in place when the Vols begin spring practice seeking Tennessee’s first SEC title since Phil Fulmer roamed the sidelines.

LSU, Auburn and Ole Miss also finished on high notes that they can draw on during those dreaded summer off-season workouts, when sweat pours like afternoon rain in the South.

Hurd, in fact, specifically mentioned those workouts, how brutal they can be, but how beneficial they became as Tennessee wore down Northwestern in the second half.

In LSU’s case, QB Brandon Harris topped 250 yards passing for the fourth time in his final six games. The Tigers found a way late in the season to get Leonard Fournette involved in the passing game, in space, without everybody keying on him. He scored on a 44-yard screen in the bowl game. You better believe we’ll see much more of that in 2016 than we did in the first 8 games of 2015, when Fournette caught just seven balls.

Look beyond the numbers, and it is easy to see Jeremy Johnson running — literally — Auburn’s offense in 2016 like he did in the Tigers’ 31-10 victory over Memphis.

And Chad Kelly and Ole Miss might just be getting started, replacing the foundation-building 2013 class with a class that currently ranks one spot higher — seventh.

Even Texas A&M, which lost, can take comfort in the fact that Jake Hubenak stepped in and ran the offense well enough to feel optimistic.

Last season, the SEC limped back to its respective campuses, angry, motivated to show its 7-5 bowl record and two-year title absence was a fluke, not a trend.

This season, they’re sprinting back to campus, excited to start the 2016 race to Tampa.