ATHENS - As it turns out ESPN’s Nick Saban was right about Kirby Smart and Georgia Football.

The 6-time national championship coach said before the No. 2 Bulldogs’ 27-8 win over the Florida Gators that Smart would have the Dawgs ready to play for the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.

“I know Kirby. Kirby is going to have these guys ready to play against a very capable Florida team that has impressive wins over Texas and Ole Miss,” Saban said. “The key to the drill is Georgia's offense averages over seven yards a play. Florida's defense has given up a lot of explosive plays and points. I think that is going to be the difference for Georgia in this one.”

He was right that the Dawgs were ready to play, but it was Georgia’s defense that forced the Gators to unravel consistently in the first half. Georgia football LB Chris Cole’s 66-yard fumble return for a touchdown was enough to put the game out of reach for the Gators.

“This, that's football, right? If you get sacks, then you get turnovers. Most fumbles occur on sacks. We got pressure on the quarterback. We affected both quarterbacks and I think anybody will tell you, if you can't run the ball, and they struggle to run it, it makes you one-dimensional, and then everybody gets to feast and rush the passer,” Smart said after the game. “That was a big play in the game. It was a huge momentum play because, again, it's really a 14-point swing. If they go down and score, fumble, Chris picks it up and scores, which he has a knack for doing. That's a big play in the game.”

It was Georgia’s 6th win a row in the rivalry and 12th since 2011.

Now the Bulldogs travel to Ole Miss to face a Rebel program that put them out of the College Football Playoff with a win in the Sugar Bowl on the last play of the game. Two of Georgia’s three of Georgia’s losses this season and last have been as a result of a field goal attempt by the opposition on the last play of the game.

Saban said the Dawgs, and the rest of college football, need to do something that is increasingly difficult.

“It has been an issue for people to maintain their intensity and play with consistency,” Saban said.

The Bulldogs will have a tremendous test with that with the trip to Oxford. The Dawgs were upset by Auburn a week after a tremendous road win over Alabama. After a rivalry win over the Gators and the Rebels with their backs against the wall - what does that mean for Georgia this week?

“It's just as important as it's gonna be next week,” Smart said of playing in the SEC. “It's no more important than it was for us to do it against Auburn when we didn’t. They're all important. That's what we learned. The victory's great, but if we'd lost this game, we'd have been second in the SEC, and we'd been going to play Ole Miss. So I think people make too big a deal about the outcomes. We're in a league where it's gonna be brutal, it's gonna be tough, and the team that's standing at the end is gonna be the one that, that, that pushed through everything and persevered.”

Saban knows that league well.