I knew it had only been a bad dream when I awoke Sunday morning. The sun rose on schedule. My old dog greeted me with her usual warmth, ready to escort me on our morning walk. My wife lay beside me, serene and beautiful in peaceful repose. I pricked my finger and touched my glucose meter to the red bead that appeared. It informed me that all was normal and my diabetes was under control. The world was lovely.

So what I remembered from Saturday night could not have happened in reality. The Crimson Tide of Alabama did not roll into Sanford Stadium in Athens, Ga., and pile up a 31-0 halftime lead over my third-ranked Georgia Bulldogs. The Tide could not have toyed with the Dawgs as Georgia pulled within two touchdowns of a tie, then tantalizingly put the game out of reach with a field goal and another touchdown.

It was all a nightmare, and I was ready to enjoy another glorious autumn Sunday, until I turned to the sports section in the morning paper. If it was a nightmare, it had visited the local sports writers, too. “Dawgs knocked out,” the headline read.

It was deja vu all over again, a reprise of the Georgia-Tennessee game of a year ago, when the setting was Neyland Stadium in Knoxville and the favored Dawgs went down 35-14. The Tide convincingly lived up to its trademark cheer: “Rammer-jammer yellowhammer, give ‘em hell Alabama!”

This wasn’t supposed to happen. This year, we were the Superdawgs. Our quarterback was throwing passes faster than a speeding bullet. Our freshman wide receiver could snag a Tomahawk missile on the fly and put it away for a touchdown. Our Heisman-candidate tailback was able to leap tall linebackers in a single bound and fly into the end zone — and we had the photographs and video clips to prove it. We had a linebacker who could run through reinforced concrete and strip the ball from an opposing runner.

The Dawgs didn’t wear red capes, but they did sport black jerseys, which had served them well in signature wins last season against Auburn and against an overmatched Hawaii team in the 2008 Sugar Bowl. The Georgia crowd responded by wearing black shirts.

We knew Alabama was good; it had established that with its 34-10 victory over a highly regarded Clemson team in the opening game this season. In that match-up, the Tide showed it needed no warm-up games against weak-sister teams from the Football Championship Subdivision — the minor leagues of college football.

Last Saturday, the Tide had a special kind of incentive: It had lost the last three match-ups with the Dawgs; it had endured a long dark night of the soul following NCAA sanctions that crippled one of the nation’s pre-eminent football programs. Now it had a $4 million-a-year coach, and ‘Bama fans were hailing him as the second coming of Bear Bryant, the beatified helmsman who led the Tide to six national titles and 13 conference championships.

The Dawgs had been spotty with streaks of brilliance, winning handily against two FCS teams, barely squeaking past the so-so South Carolina Gamecocks, then apparently getting it mostly together with a convincing road victory against Arizona State.

Against Alabama, they had the home-field advantage, although Georgia has a history of showing up flat at Sanford Stadium against tough Southeastern Conference opponents.

So the Superdawgs faced a rising tide, and we all expected a close game with the Dawgs, maybe, emerging as No. 1 following Southern Cals stumble against Oregon State.

What we didn’t know was that Alabama wore helmets made of kryptonite. They made our superheroes look like Vanderbilt in a bad year. Our offensive line couldn’t protect our quarterback and our defensive line couldn’t reach theirs. Their punter showed up about as often as Sarah Palin appears at press conferences. Who needs a punter when you score on your first five possessions?

Yeah, we had reason to cheer a bit as the second half progressed. Our quarterback finally found some targets, and we began to score. The deja-vu shifted briefly to the Chick-Fil-A bowl of 2006, when we trailed Virginia Tech 21-3 at the half and came back to win.

But this wasn’t Virginia Tech. And the deficit was 31 points, not 18.

Dawg fans need not sink into depression. Our team is still good, our guys are still talented, our coach is still competent. We face a brutal schedule and, yes, this could be the game that sends us into eclipse for the rest of the season. Or it could be the wake-up call that launches us on another pursuit of a conference title. If the Dawgs rally to win the Eastern Division SEC championship and the Tide rolls to the Western Division championship, the two teams could meet again in the Georgia Dome.

Maybe from now on Georgia shouldn’t put too much stock in blackouts. In this case, black became the color of mourning, and Bama fans quickly took up the taunt, invoking the name of the state’s biggest electricity supplier: “Georgia had a blackout, but Alabama Power fixed it.”

But perhaps as loyal supporters of the Southeastern Conference, we should take rueful consolation in the knowledge that we were in on the making of history: ‘Bama is back. This is not the Crimson Tide of the hapless Mike Shula era. What we saw was a Crimson Tsunami. From now on, it will be hard to deny ‘Bama the place it has earned in college football lore.

And we Dawg fans must be big boys and acknowledge, no excuses, no alibis: They whipped us.

Or as they would say in Tuscaloosa: the Yellowhammer hammered us.

Readers may write Gene Owens at 317 Braeburn Drive, Anderson SC 29621 or e-mail him at WadesDixieco@aol.com.