It’s been a good, long while, so if they haven’t already, I hope Georgia fans will take a few minutes between now and Monday afternoon to look up from the headlines and depth charts and travel plans and resolutions and unfolding-in-real-time recruiting news and dubious hangover cures and whatever else happens to be bombarding their attention spans and really, you know, enjoy where they are. For their own sake.

As a community. Even in good times, opportunities for Rose Bowls and national championships are elusive — although, yes, Georgia fans are probably the last people who need to be reminded of this — and however many more of them there are to come over the next few years this one is worth savoring.

In retrospect, the second-year surge under Kirby Smart has already come to feel inevitable, like settling into the main feature after sitting through one too many previews of the coming attractions. Think back, though, and it doesn’t take a very long memory to recall when it most certainly was not. This time last year, the Bulldogs were unranked, limping into a deflating date in the Liberty Bowl to cap a season that included losses not only to Tennessee and Florida (again), but also to Ole Miss, Vanderbilt and Georgia Tech. Smart, a rookie head coach, had hardly been a slam-dunk choice to replace Mark Richt in the first place, and the early returns were anything but encouraging.

It’s easier now, from the glow of national relevance, to dismiss the lingering doubts that carried over into 2017, or — even better — to wrap them up in the narrative of The Process, the natural analog to Nick Saban’s underwhelming, 7-6 debut at Alabama in 2007. Everything else about Georgia’s ascent has unfolded as a shot-for-shot remake of Bama’s resurgence a decade ago, up to and including Smart’s new program supplanting his old one at the top of the national recruiting rankings; why not the shaky first chapter, too?

Before their version of the Death Star becomes fully operational, though, the Bulldogs shouldn’t take for granted the fact that their $25 million bet on a long-time Saban acolyte has apparently paid off where their rivals’ wagers failed. The end of the Richt era wasn’t the slow-motion crash it’s sometimes made out to be (UGA spent multiple weeks in the AP top 10 in each of his last five seasons, finishing there twice), but it was devoid of the kind of the kind of tangible milestones that hold up over time. In that sense this season is already a genuine breakthrough.

It had been 10 years since Georgia’s last major bowl game, 12 since its last SEC championship, and 35 since the last time it rang in a new year with a national championship still realistically within its grasp, droughts most of the state’s population could recite by heart. The clock on all of them now sits at zero. When the Jan. 1 sun comes up over Pasadena it will be illuminating the biggest stage for Georgia football in a generation.

So, amid the million other details surrounding the event, between the logistics and the anxiety, don’t forget to stop for a moment or two, finally, to soak the whole thing up: A culmination and a beginning, in the best setting in sports, with tantalizing high stakes on the line. And even if the scene turns out to be the first of many under Smart — as every indication suggests it will — it’s an opening act Bulldogs fans have been waiting much too long to see. Whatever happens next, Georgia has arrived. Know that.

Then, on to the business at hand.

WHEN OKLAHOMA HAS THE BALL …

If you’re reading this, I’m going to go ahead and assume you need no introduction to Baker Mayfield, the Face of College Football in 2017, about whom there’s nothing left to write that hasn’t already been written, or tweeted, or intoned in reverent voiceovers, or screamed by opposing fans in a fit of helpless frustration.

Mayfield is the most decorated player in the country, by far; he’s also the most maddening, in every sense of the word, as polarizing among NFL scouts as he is on Big 12 road trips. The obvious comparisons — to Brees, Manziel, Russell Wilson — are apt, to the extent that Mayfield embodies the best attributes of all three in an identical, 6-foot-nothing package, and slightly flawed, too, in that none of the above has managed to combine all of those qualities in quite the same way. His ability to channel hyper-competitive swagger into record-breaking efficiency is unique.

Of course, if you’re reading this on a site devoted to the SEC, then odds are you probably also have a few pointed questions, re: the quality of some of the defenses Mayfield has victimized to this point, only two of which (Ohio State and TCU) ended the regular season ranked among the top 25 nationally according to Defensive S&P+. Fair enough. But on paper, anyway, the fact is the opposition has hardly made a difference one way or the other. In fact, while Mayfield has been good to great in every game — efficiency-wise, he’s finished with a rating of 165.0 or higher in 23 straight, an incredible streak dating back to OU’s September 2016 loss to Ohio State — relative to the competition, the Sooners’ biggest tests have brought out his best:

Any way you slice the numbers, Mayfield has been the most productive passer in the nation — vs. conference opponents, vs. non-conference opponents, vs. opponents with winning records, vs. ranked opponents according to the final AP poll. He posted the nation’s best efficiency rating in September, when he was the MVP of arguably the most impressive road win of the season at Ohio State, and in November, when he set the season’s high-water marks for both passing yards (598 at Oklahoma State) and efficiency (279.4 vs. West Virginia) vs. Power-5 opponents.

In between, his outing at Kansas State was Pro Football Focus’ highest-graded performance of the season by any FBS quarterback. Success, at least to this point, is a given; the only variable is to what degree, and whether it will be enough to overcome the Sooners’ sketchy defense.

In that context, Georgia’s mostly stellar track record against the pass doesn’t count for much in and of itself, especially given that the only clearly NFL-bound passers the Bulldogs faced in the regular season (Missouri’s Drew Lock and Auburn’s Jarrett Stidham) both had big games against UGA — between them, Lock and Stidham combined to average 10 yards per attempt in the regular-season meetings with seven touchdowns to just one INT. The more urgent question for Georgia, though, is how it will fare against Oklahoma’s vastly underrated ground game, which deserves more credit for creating the context of Mayfield’s superlative stat lines than it tends to receive.

Look at the chart again, this time at the “Attempts” column: Contrary to OU’s high-flying, up-tempo reputation, Mayfield has actually attempted fewer than 30 passes per game, right around the national average. Instead, his output is just one aspect of a fundamentally balanced attack, one that kept the ball on the ground on nearly 56 percent of its total snaps and led the Big 12 in rushing yards per game and per carry. In fact, in advanced-stat terms the Sooners’ running game was arguably the most efficient in the country, finishing No. 1 nationally in Rushing S&P+, No. 2 in Adjusted Line Yards, and No. 3 in Rushing Success Rate. Somehow they lost a pair of 1,000-yard, All-Big 12 rushers from last year’s backfield — both of whom, Joe Mixon and Samaje Perine, are currently leading their respective NFL teams in rushing as rookies — and got better.

More than anything, that’s an endorsement for the offensive line, a long-in-the-tooth group that returned all five starters from 2016 and boasts 142 career starts between them; four of those five (LT Orlando Brown Jr., center Erick Wren, and guards Dru Samia and Ben Powers) were voted first- or second-team All-Big 12 by league coaches, with Brown repping the group nationally as a unanimous All-American.

But it’s also a testament to the unexpectedly replenished depth of the OU backfield, a glaring question mark at the start of the season that turned into a strength with the emergence of Rodney Anderson, Abdul Adams, and true freshman Trey Sermon as versatile, complementary threats who have collectively held up their end of the game plan on a weekly basis. Anderson, who took over as the every-down workhorse at midseason, won’t face charges after being accused of rape earlier this month and is expected to remain in the starting role.

There’s a direct line from the Sooners’ unheralded efficiency on the ground to Mayfield’s over-the-top success on play-action passes, most clearly reflected in his descent into the mortal realm on third downs:

That’s not a collapse or anything, by any means; Mayfield’s overall efficiency rating on third-down ranks 32nd among QBs with at least 50 attempts, which is still above average. But it is the one scenario — the only one — in which his output is anything short of spectacular, especially on the rare occasions the Sooners are forced into third-and-long. Georgia’s chances of confining him to that box are plausible if it stuffs the run as effectively as it did against Auburn in the SEC title game: The Tigers’ output on the ground declined significantly compared to the regular-season romp in Auburn, from 249 yards on 5.2 per carry (excluding sacks) the first time around to 138 on 4.9 per carry in the rematch. Stidham’s fortunes as a passer plunged accordingly.

You don’t have to pore over hours of film to know Georgia is better at getting after opposing passers than its mediocre sack totals suggest, if for no other reason than sheer athleticism. The more often outside ‘backers Lorenzo Carter, Davin Bellamy and D’Andre Walker are able to tee off in obvious passing situations, the better the Bulldogs’ prospects of forcing Mayfield into check-downs, throwaways, or, at some point, the kind of un-Mayfieldian giveaway in the face of the pass rush that played such a crucial role in UGA’s wins over Notre Dame and Auburn. If Oklahoma is consistently grinding out four- and five-yard gains on first down, the secondary will be in for a long afternoon.

Key matchup: Oklahoma FB/H-Back Dimitri Flowers vs. Georgia S J.R. Reed: Statistically, at least, everyone eligible to catch a pass in Oklahoma’s passing scheme qualifies as a “big play” receiver: Including backs and tight ends, Mayfield’s top eight targets all average at least 15 yards per catch, led by late-blooming JUCO transfer Marquise Brown (20.0) and true freshman CeeDee Lamb (18.5).

With that kind of firepower on the outside, it’s easy to overlook Flowers, a 6-2, 247-pound senior blessed with exactly the kind of straight-line speed his size and position would suggest. For sheer versatility, though, he embodies the Catch-22 that Oklahoma’s balance poses for defenses, and may be as indispensable as anyone in the lineup outside of Mayfield himself.

Although Flowers is not a traditional fullback in the old-school, lead-blocking-from-the-I-formation sense, he does play a similar, workmanlike role as an H-back, particularly on the assortment of traps and wham blocks OU deploys to create creases between the tackles. (Again, while Oklahoma technically is a “spread” team, if you’re expecting a lot of 5-wide Air Raid sets from these Sooners, you’re a few years late to the party.)

But his value as a blocker also creates high-percentage openings for Flowers on play-action and run-pass options, opportunities he’s exploited to maximum effect against out-of-position, run-focused defenses from Ohio State, out of the backfield:

Baker Mayfield finds Dimitri Flowers after a nice play fake to tie the game at 10-10. #Sooners #Buckeyes #OUvsOSU pic.twitter.com/mykUXbFZu8 — Tino Bovenzi (@TinoBovenzi) September 10, 2017

… and Baylor, as a tight end:

… and Oklahoma State, from the Pistol:

Another tough look for Tre here as his cousin Dimitri Flowers puts a move on him to get open for the score #okstate pic.twitter.com/spYGCMvsAt — Dustin Ragusa (@DustRagu) November 5, 2017

… and Kansas State, as a goal-line H-back:

Oklahoma pistol play-action inside the red zone. Easy money to Dimitri Flowers pic.twitter.com/LdDhrN2QzT — Billy Marshall (@BillyM_91) December 1, 2017

… among others. For all the lethal, field-stretching speed at Oklahoma’s disposal, at the end of the day it’s the big blocking back who leads the team at 15.8 yards per target.

For his part, Reed has played an unsung role on Georgia’s defense, too, fending off a couple of highly touted recruits to become one of the SEC’s better box safeties against the run after sitting out last year as a transfer from Tulsa. In that capacity he finished second on the team in both solo and total tackles. If he loses track of no. 36 on his way to the ball, though, then we’ve seen enough over-aggressive safeties at this point fall through the trap door the Sooners’ RPO scheme sets for them to guess the result.

WHEN GEORGIA HAS THE BALL …

Based strictly on its reputation, Oklahoma’s defense is probably better than it gets credit for. On occasion it’s been legitimately good, in fact, holding Ohio State to a season-low 16 points in Columbus and TCU to a combined 37 points in the Sooners’ two wins over the Frogs. (In its other 11 games TCU averaged 36 points.) Three defensive starters were first- or second-team All-Big 12, including edge rusher Ogbonnia “Obo” Okoronkwo, the conference’s co-Defensive Player of the Year.

The lows, though, have been very, very low. In their only loss, at Iowa State, the Sooners blew a 24-10 lead by allowing the Cyclones to score on each of their final five offensive possessions, including three straight touchdown drives to close the game that covered 94, 73, and 75 yards, respectively; worse, that game marked the first career start for ISU quarterback Kyle Kempt, a former walk-on who torched OU for 343 yards and three TDs on 14.3 yards per attempt. (Kempt was respectable over the second half of the season but didn’t come close to replicating that performance.) The previous week, they allowed 41 points on 523 yards of total offense to a rock-bottom version of Baylor, both season highs for the Bears against an FBS opponent. Oklahoma gave up more yards to Texas (428) than any of the Longhorns’ subsequent six opponents to close the year, and made no pretense of stopping Oklahoma State in an infamous, no-holds-barred shootout that featured 1,446 yards of total offense, 62 first downs, and 15 touchdowns between both sides. How they even managed to fit four punts into that bonanza is a mystery.

All told, the Sooners’ standing in the national rankings — 57th in total defense, 62nd in scoring, a dismal 95th in Defensive S&P+ — is probably a roughly accurate description of their actual performance from start to finish. But the talent level is obviously much higher than that, and its big-game success against the Buckeyes and Horned Frogs is proof that the defense is as capable of rising to the occasion on a given afternoon as its counterparts on offense. On this particular afternoon? Who knows.

A couple things we do know: 1. Georgia QB Jake Fromm is coming off arguably his most reassuring performance of the season in the SEC Championship win over Auburn, rebounding from a rough effort against the Tigers in November to finish 16-of-22 for 183 yards and two touchdowns in the rematch; and 2. The less Fromm has to do on Monday, the better. The Bulldogs are who they are, and as assuredly as ever who they is an outfit built on the premise of imposing their will at the line of scrimmage.

Outside of the regular-season flop at Auburn, they’ve been as consistent in that respect as any ground attack in the nation, averaging nearly 300 rushing yards per game against their other nine Power-5 opponents. The second go-round against the Tigers yielded 251 yards (excluding sacks) on 6.4 per carry, a vast improvement over the first game — or vast enough, anyway, to allay any fears that the offensive line had been permanently exposed by the only top-shelf defense on the schedule. And as we’ve seen, Oklahoma’s is by no means a top-shelf defense. If Nick Chubb, Sony Michel and D’Andre Swift finish with fewer than 30 touches between them, then something has gone seriously wrong.

Regular readers know I’ve been wary of anointing Fromm too soon, in part out of respect for the standard caveats that apply to true freshman quarterbacks, and in even larger part because he’s spent almost all of his rookie season operating in absolutely ideal conditions. He accounted for a significantly smaller of share of Georgia’s total offense (40.4 percent) than any other full-time SEC starter, and when Auburn took away his safety blanket in the regular-season meeting, shoving Fromm into the spotlight, the offense thudded to a halt. Under pressure, on the road, he looked for the first time like just another freshman QB in over his head.

Again, though, no other defense has managed the same feat, including Auburn’s, and as long as they’ve been forced to devote most of their attention to the running game Fromm has continued to hone his impersonation of a wily vet. He led the SEC in pass efficiency, posted the second-best rating nationally on third down, and posed a legitimate threat to secondaries that underestimate his ability to challenge them deep. Given time, he’s capable of looking like an eminently draftable prospect who arrived on campus almost fully formed.

With 10 touchdowns and 0 interceptions on passes targeted 20+ yards downfield – Georgia QB Jake Fromm fielded the nation's highest passer rating on deep passes this season. pic.twitter.com/0oD7FrfuEW — PFF College Football (@PFF_College) December 21, 2017

And while everything Georgia does offensively begins and ends with establishing its NFL-ready running backs between the tackles, it’s most clear-cut advantage against Oklahoma may be on the outside, where wideouts Terry Godwin (18.8. yards per catch) and Javon Wims (16.6) will be matched up against a motley crew of cornerbacks who have struggled through youth, injuries, and a steady diet of criticism. The nominal starters on the depth chart are Tre Norwood, a true freshman who’s started the past four games in place of beleaguered senior Jordan Thomas, and sophomore Parnell Motley, who was briefly benched last month on the heels of a midseason slump.

In the Sooners’ defense, a schedule full of Big 12 offenses tends to make almost every secondary look bad; OU actually finished in the top half of the conference in pass efficiency D, for whatever it’s worth, despite coming in a dismal 86th nationally. But the local standards aren’t nearly high enough to imagine Godwin and Wims won’t have a few home-run opportunities off play-action.

Key matchup: Georgia RT Andrew Thomas vs. Oklahoma OLB Obo Okoronkwo: If the Sooners have anything to look forward to on this side of the ball, it must be the prospect of the Big 12’s best pass rusher opposite a true freshman tackle who’s been known to struggle with next-level speed off the edge.

But Thomas is an intriguing prospect in his own right, a 6-5, 320-pound behemoth who beat out 5-star classmate Isaiah Wilson in preseason camp and quickly cemented himself as a mainstay on one of the nation’s best fronts; he was a no-brainer for Freshman All-America status after starting all 13 games. In obvious passing situations, Ogbonnia’s speed from the “Jack” position — Oklahoma’s version of the hybrid DE/OLB role — makes him a potential nightmare. At 6-1, 240, though, he’s also at a significant disadvantage when lining up on Thomas’ side of the line in terms of sheer bulk.

Whatever problems he poses for the rookie in pass protection, he has just as much to prove himself against the run.

SPECIAL TEAMS, INJURIES AND OTHER VAGARIES

If Georgia’s Mecole Hardman Jr. is ever going to break through in the return game, the Playoff semifinal would be an opportune time to do it. He’s overdue: After a subdued freshman campaign in 2016, Hardman began to realize his 5-star potential this year with four offensive touchdowns on just 28 total touches, three of them coming on plays of 20 yards or more.

But his success as a receiver only makes his failure to house any of his 35 return attempts that much more inexplicable — all the more so given that he led the SEC in kickoff return average and came in second on punt returns. If it doesn’t happen it will be just the second time Georgia has gone an entire season without a return TD in the past decade.

Otherwise the outlook in the kicking game is par for the course. Georgia has been blessed with two of the more quietly reliable legs in the country, kicker Rodrigo Blankenship (15-for-17 on field goals) and punter Cameron Nizialek, who allowed returns on just 11 of his 49 punts.

Oklahoma is in capable hands — er, feet? — with junior Austin Seibert, who handled every field goal and punt for the Sooners for the third year in a row. Neither side has returned a kickoff or punt for a score, or allowed a kickoff or punt for a score; neither side has had a field goal or punt blocked. Statistically, brace for a rousing display of fair catches and touchbacks.

For this time of year, both teams will arrive in reasonably good health. The most significant absence will be Georgia inside linebacker Natrez Patrick, a starter, who entered a drug treatment program earlier this month as a result of a misdemeanor marijuana charge; his likely replacement is senior Reggie Carter, who has three starts this season (against Florida, South Carolina and Kentucky) and a dozen over the past two years.

On the other side of the ball, the Bulldogs expect senior fullback Christian Payne back from an undisclosed injury that kept him out of the SEC title game, although in a pinch backup tailback Elijah Holyfield turned out to be a more than adequate fill-in. This one will be decided at full strength.

BOTTOM LINE

On some level, I think SEC fans still tend to view all opposing quarterbacks from other conferences as a cast of interchangeable Todd Boeckmans, and it’s true that there’s a long, undistinguished history of Heisman-winning quarterbacks — Heisman-winning quarterbacks from Oklahoma, specifically — flopping miserably in the postseason.

There are zero reasons whatsoever to believe Baker Mayfield will join that list, against Georgia or anyone else. If it comes down to the quarterbacks, the Sooners have an obvious edge, at least as decisive as the one that ultimately put Clemson over the top against Alabama in last year’s championship game. Any matchup between a decorated, fifth-year headliner in one huddle and a decidedly within-the-offense freshman in the other might as well come with a big, flashing arrow pointing toward the former.

Given that, the fact that Oklahoma will enter the game as a slight underdog according to Vegas is a serious indictment of the Sooners’ defense, which inspires exactly the opposite level of trust. If Georgia has its way offensively (and it usually does), Fromm won’t have to exert himself, Mayfield won’t touch the ball nearly as often as he’s accustomed to, and he’ll have to be as close to perfect when he does as he’s ever been to offset the collective star power of Chubb, Michel, and their underrated supporting cast.

With Mayfield’s track record, it’s entirely possible he’ll do just that. If that’s what it’s going to take, though, then it’s also possible that the gap between the respective defenses is too wide to be bridged even by the most compelling player in the game.

SIX PREDICTIONS

1. Roquan Smith records double-digit tackles, leading the way as Georgia holds the Sooners below four yards per carry as a team for the first time since their Week 2 trip to Ohio State.

2. Obo Ogbonnia records an early sack at Andrew Thomas’ expense, but goes quiet the rest of the game.

3. Jake Fromm attempts fewer than 20 passes, recovering from a shaky start to average at least 10 yards per attempt with multiple touchdowns.

4. Georgia exceeds its season average for rushing yards (264) and yards per carry (5.8) as a team, but falls just short of producing an individual 100-yard rusher.

5. Baker Mayfield personally accounts for at least three touchdowns, as he has in 12 of Oklahoma’s 13 games this season, but also commits multiple turnovers for only the second time as Georgia’s pass rush generates pressure late.

6. Georgia wins, 36–31