ATHENS, Ga. -- The image of a world-class sprinter flashed across a giant video screen in a Georgia team meeting a few weeks ago.

Olympic champion Usain Bolt broke out of the blocks and typically surged ahead of the pack. If any of the Bulldogs missed the message, they were either late or sleeping.

And at Kirby Smart's Georgia, God help any of the Dawgs if they were.

"We saw a great analogy," senior defensive back Aaron Davis said. "Coach stopped the tape at 40 or 50 meters just to let you know it's a 100-meter race. They don't declare any champions at 40 or 50 meters of a 100-meter race. The analogy is perfect."

You should have an idea by now what Smart was trying to accomplish. There are Disney princess movies that deliver more complicated plots.

The Dawgs ain't done nothin' yet, but hunker down because the season ain't over yet, either.

With six weeks remaining, Georgia is one eight undefeated teams. Never mind it has played one ranked team in getting off to a 7-0 start. That win at Notre Dame looks more impressive by the day. Never mind the Dawgs are missing Alabama, LSU and Texas A&M on their SEC schedule. That's the luck of the draw in the age of 14-team conferences. Never mind a win over Florida this week could keep the Cocktail Party going. Or … that there is an unspeakable clunker out there that will ruin it all.

The Dawgs haven't been this good this late since 2005, the last time Georgia won the SEC.

The Dawgs continue to chase a 37-year-old national championship ghost while distancing themselves from the seemingly never-quite-good-enough Mark Richt.

"Obviously, his impact is everywhere," tight end Jeb Blazevich said of the coach recruited him.

But ask Smart how much credit his predecessor should get, well, that's when his back stiffens a bit. It's a new day, night and Dawg here.

"You look and see how many freshmen and sophomores [we have], over 50 percent of our team," Smart said, referring to the players he recruited. "Fifty percent of those guys weren't here."

The presence of one of those freshmen begs one of biggest questions of the 2017 season: What are the odds any team would be 7-0 after losing its starting quarterback in the opener? That's what happened here when sophomore Jacob Eason went down against Appalachian State with a sprained left knee ligament.

In came the nation's No. 4 pro-style quarterback, early enrollee Jake Fromm. Georgia now boasts the SEC's top-rated passer.

"If you told me that in mid-year, I probably wouldn't have believed it," Smart said. "After the spring, I thought there wouldn't be a huge drop off. I don't know I thought we'd be undefeated."

Georgia probably isn't undefeated without key elements Richt left behind, either. Five Richt holdovers returned after checking out the NFL Draft. Safety Dominick Sanders, tailbacks Nick Chubb and Sony Michel, and linebackers Lorenzo Carter and Davin Bellamy all chose to come back. Sanders leads the team in interceptions. Carter leads in tackles for loss. Chubb is Georgia's No. 2 career rusher. Chubb is No. 6. Bellamy is No. 2 this season in sacks.

All this is mentioned because Richt is currently coaching another one of those eight undefeateds at Miami. He's answering the same questions about Al Golden.

What Richt did not leave is much depth in the offensive and defensive lines. In a flash, Georgia is reflecting not only an SEC ethic but Nick Saban's, which is significant.

This year's Georgia defense had 10 returning starters including All-American candidate, linebacker Roquan Smith. A bit of statistical serendipity could be settled in the SEC Championship Game: Alabama is No. 1 in total defense; Georgia is No. 3.

"He's the right guy," 72-year old Jim Donnan said of Smart.

As Georgia's coach from 1996-2000, Donnan is as close to Smart as anyone in this town. Donnan inherited Smart as a player and eventually gave him his first job as a graduate assistant.

"The one thing I remember forever," Donnan said, "when I took over the job here, there was always a lot about comparison [to the former coach Ray Goff]. Kirby stood up in front of the whole team and said, 'Look, I can't help it, you can't help it. Let's jump and board and help this guy.'"

Georgia began the season as SEC East favorites, but as it has in recent years, that might as well be a curse in the wide-open division. It looked something like that when Eason was injured.

"If you told me that halfway through the spring, I'd say, 'We're screwed,'" Blazevich said. "If you told me at the end of spring, well, we'll get a few wins out of that. If you tell me that in the middle of fall camp, I'd say, 'Let's go get it done.'"

Fromm was that impressive -- not only at winning games but also just not losing them. The freshman leads the SEC and is in the top 10 nationally in yards per attempt (9.6).

That leaves room for a reasonable comparison. The last time Smart was in the second year of a rebuild, Alabama went from 7-6 in 2007 to 12-2 in 2008. As Saban's defensive coordinator for eight seasons, Smart was a participant in a modern dynasty.

"I don't know if there is a parallel to there," Smart said. "I thought we had better players here than we did there our second year. The cupboard wasn't bare here."

Veteran quarterback John Parker Wilson was around to guide Bama in 2007-08. Smart quietly lamented having to start true freshmen quarterbacks in his first two seasons.

"That's toughest thing for me -- first-year starter, first-year starter," he said.

But there is no sympathy in this league. Not with Georgia under Smart looking as buckled down as Alabama is under Saban.

"When I first got here, in my opinion, they didn't know how to compete down here," said strength coach Scott Sinclair.

He is referring to the interior of a new weight room that helps put Georgia at least on par with its SEC rivals. When Smart arrived, the view from his office was … dirt. While construction continued on a sparkling new indoor facility, the Dawgs bussed 10 minutes back-and-forth to intramural fields for practice.

"Just think of all that your first year," athletic director Greg McGarity said. "You had nowhere to go. If it rained out there, they had to get on the busses."

McGarity called Smart "relentless" as a recruiter. Georgia recently got a commitment from quarterback Justin Fields, the nation's No. 1 high school player from Kennesaw, Georgia. That after Fields has initially committed to Penn State and considered a bevy of other top schools including Auburn, Florida and Florida State. Never mind Fields will arrive next year with that position stocked with Eason and Fromm.

"Every time we'd lose a kid [to Alabama], it was 'Well, Kirby's the lead recruiter in the state,'" McGarity said. 

Donnan added, "You don't have to give him a road map to go to the high school coaches. He's a very technical coach -- Xs and Os. Really good motivator. Look at the way our team improved."

Now try to remember the last first-time head coach in the SEC to get this deep into his second season undefeated.

That would have been Will Mushcamp, Smart's former UGA teammate, in his second year at Florida. The 2012 Gators started 7-0 and finished No. 9 in the nation. Then-No. 2 UF lost to Georgia this week five years ago; UGA is No. 3 entering Saturday's rivalry showdown.

Like Saban, Smart gives the outside world only fleeting glimpses of the guts of his program. Fromm isn't allowed to talk to the media because he is a freshman. That sort of approach has never made sense on the outside when Fromm is trusted enough to audible in front of 90,000 hostile fans.

"That's just the way we do things around here," Blazevich said. "Young bucks got to pay their dues and understand what it takes before you can let them loose and let them talk to people."

These are policies, game plans and edicts that go back to Saban's time with Bill Belichick at the Browns.

"Every hire is a risk, but Kirby learned from the best, in my mind," McGarity said. "He knew what it looked like. He played the game. He came up through the ranks where his dad was a high school coach. I knew he knew what it took."

At this point in a turnaround, it takes a village -- of Dawgs. Like Saban, like the greats, Smart is making sure his team is effective in all three phases.

You want competition? Walk-on kicker Rodrigo Blankenship was a freshman All-American in 2016 but wasn't awarded a scholarship until after the Notre Dame game.

Sinclair conducts what he calls "Hug Wednesday." Each player who enters the weight room gets a legit hug from the strength staff.

"At first, this one player in particular had a hard time hugging us," Sinclair said. "He would just give us an arm. But now he'll put both arms around you and hug you. Little things like that has nothing to do with weight training. That's just letting them know we care about them. When they realize you care, you can get them to do whatever you want to do."

That includes finish this magic season the same way it started. Speaking of which, whatever happened to Bolt in that race Smart showed the team?

"We didn't see the rest of it," Davis said. "Coach shut it off."

The message was not missed.