ATHENS — Georgia stands alone atop the SEC once more.

The No. 1-ranked Bulldogs looked worthy of their lofty ranking in dismantling Kentucky by a 51-13 count at Sanford Stadium.

To be clear, the ranking does nothing for Kirby Smart at this point of the season.

“I want to be the number one team at the end of the year,” Smart said. “The goal to get there is to get better. I could care less where anyone ranks us.”

Smart seems to prefer it when his team is overlooked, something he has used for motivation the previous two seasons.

Georgia (6-0, 3-0 SEC) is sure to remain number one this week after out-gaining the previously unbeaten Wildcats (5-1, 2-1) by a whopping 608-183 yards with the national ESPN audience looking on Saturday night.

The win leaves the Bulldogs as the last undefeated SEC team standing, with LSU disposing of previously unbeaten Missouri earlier in the day.

It turned out all Georgia needed was a ranked opponent to apply itself enforce and regain the national championship form it flexed in the past two college football playoffs.

Smart, a master motivator, did more than just challenge his players’ manhood leading up to the game — they weren’t going to get pushed around in their home stadium by a basketball school, were they?

“We challenged them all week to have a connected physicality,” Smart said, looking as happy and relieved in the postgame press conference as he has all season.

“We talked all week about mass and acceleration equal force. We wanted to have a lot of mass and a lot of acceleration.”

Smart indicated that he showed his team wrecking ball footage leading up to the game.

Whether it was that imagery, Smart’s applied science of force or the more primitive challenge to “man-up,” the Bulldogs came out foaming at the mouth.

Georgia scored on its first six possessions, including touchdowns on its first two drives, utilizing what Smart said was an “really aggressive play calling” to turn Carson Beck loose.

The fourth-year junior responded by completing his first 13 passes en route to a 28-of-35 passing performance that netted 389 yards and 4 touchdowns with one interception.

Beck could have had even more had Smart not lifted him in the fourth quarter, sending dual-threat quarterback Brock Vandagriff into the action.

Vandagriff, a former Oklahoma commit, was notably good in completing 5 of 7 passes for 46 yards and a touchdown along with carrying the ball twice for 27 yards.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a vintage Kirby Smart offensive performance without Vandagriff’s roommate, Brock Bowers, having a night.

Bowers had 7 catches for 132 yards and a touchdown, marking his third consecutive game with more than 100 yards and a touchdown.

Like Beck said after the game, “it felt like nothing could go wrong” for Georgia football on Saturday night.

It very much looked like that, too.