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It’s a new world of college football, but Rivalry Week still rules.
Is that a wild take? It shouldn’t be. We’ve got a slew of Playoff berths that need to be decided, with perhaps only Oregon, Ohio State and Texas locked in as Playoff-bound teams.
As for everyone else in pursuit of a Playoff bid? Beat your rival, then we’ll talk.
In the SEC, we’ve got 10 Rivalry Week games, several of which have Playoff implications.
Let’s discuss some early thoughts on the entire slate:
Mississippi State vs. No. 15 Ole Miss — Can the Egg Bowl be what the doctor ordered for a dejected Ole Miss?
If Ole Miss comes out like the team that feels sorry for itself because it lost 3 games to ruin a favorable Playoff path, it’ll be in for a dogfight. Never rule out that possibility in the Egg Bowl. Ole Miss dropping passes left and right can negate a porous pass defense, which Mississippi State clearly is. Tulsa is the only FBS team that allowed a better opposing QB rating than the Bulldogs, who are searching for their first and final opportunity for an SEC win in Year 1 of the Jeff Lebby era. Even if Tre Harris is unable to go, there’s no reason why this matchup shouldn’t heavily favor Lane Kiffin’s squad.
Georgia Tech vs. No. 6 Georgia — Brent Key has been plenty competitive against Georgia
Two years ago as the Jackets’ interim coach, Key and Georgia Tech trailed 13-7 in the middle of the 3rd quarter against the eventual national champs in Athens. Brock Bowers made a nice play on a 4th-and-goal catch and UGA pulled away in the final 20 minutes, but that was a competitive game. Last year was also plenty competitive. UGA still had to pick up first downs in the final minutes to prevent Georgia Tech from getting the ball back for a potential game-tying drive. In other words, ignore the 6-year winning streak and the fact that UGA is a 19.5-point favorite. Shoot, ignore the likely scenario that Haynes King isn’t playing anywhere near a full snap share. After a season of competitive games against non-contenders, UGA could be in a dogfight before it heads to Atlanta for the SEC Championship.
No. 7 Tennessee vs. Vanderbilt — Vandy can turn the SEC into a 2-bid league
Diego Pavia has the power to do the most ironic thing imaginable. That is, lead Vandy to an upset of Tennessee to make the SEC potentially a 2-bid league. That would be stunning, though not impossible. Of course, A&M could still beat Texas and take down Georgia in the SEC Championship, which would potentially mean that a 3-bid SEC is still possible. But this speaks to the chaos that Tennessee benefitted from on Saturday. Alabama, Ole Miss and Indiana all losing was monumental for the 2-loss Vols. Pavia might be the perfect person to play spoiler … or he might be the guy who led an offense that’s averaging just 5 yards per play post-Alabama win (that would be in the bottom 15 nationally if that was a season-long stat). Either way, a weird SEC can get even weirder on Saturday in Nashville.
No. 16 South Carolina vs. No. 12 Clemson — Why I’m not arguing for the winner to be Playoff-worthy
Let’s start with the Clemson side. I realize that we could be talking about a 10-2 Clemson team that is idle during conference championship weekend if Miami avoids a letdown vs. Syracuse. In 3 games vs. FBS teams with at least 7 wins, Clemson was 1-2 and outscored 87-48. In 8 games vs. FBS teams with fewer than 7 wins, Clemson was 8-0 and it outscored teams by 211 points. Something tells me those things are related. Even if Georgia lost in the SEC Championship, I’d still take the Dawgs, a 1-loss Indiana or a 2-loss Tennessee over Clemson. As for South Carolina, there might not be 10 teams in the sport who are playing better than the Gamecocks right now. Maybe that’ll play out on Saturday in Death Valley. But even though the LSU loss was extremely controversial, it’s still a 3-loss team that got blown out in 1 of those games. Alabama and Ole Miss both have the head-to-head over the Gamecocks, who also wouldn’t quite have as impressive of a win/résumé as those 2 teams.
But no, I’m not arguing for 3-loss Alabama or Ole Miss, either. Treat this game for what it is — an awesome Rivalry Week showdown that’ll have massive bragging rights at stake throughout the state of South Carolina.
Louisville vs. Kentucky — It’s Cutter Boley time in Lexington
Mark Stoops announced that we’ll see the freshman spin it on that stage. Good. I understand that this game will essentially be a bowl game for Kentucky, who will miss the postseason for the first time since 2015. This game matters to Mark Stoops. A lot. It matters to him that the last Louisville quarterback to beat him was Lamar Jackson. But if you want to get your freshman quarterback some valuable reps and see if you need to build around him instead of dipping into the transfer portal yet again, now is the time to find that out. Boley provided a spark in Austin, and while the scoreboard didn’t reflect that, you could tell the Kentucky offense ran better with him than it did with Brock Vandagriff. Stoops recognizing that is a positive sign.
Auburn vs. No. 13 Alabama — Alabama can lose this game if it doesn’t make adjustments
If you think that’s crazy just because of Auburn’s lack of success in Tuscaloosa — Cam Newton led the last Auburn win in Bryant-Denny with a certain “Cam-back” game — consider this. Payton Thorne and Jarquez Hunter can execute a game plan that’s somewhat similar to what Jackson Arnold and Xavier Robinson just pulled off, and Auburn’s defense is among the more underrated SEC units. If Alabama shows up like it did in Norman, it can lose. Period. Adjustments have to be made whether Deontae Lawson returns or not. And offensively, Alabama’s offense can’t be so predicated on Jalen Milroe finding running lanes. Auburn is No. 16 in FBS in yards/play allowed and it only allowed 9 runs of 20 yards all season. This Alabama team isn’t good enough to play a C+ game and cruise.
Arkansas vs. No. 24 Mizzou — If this is the last Luther Burden III game, it’s been a pleasure
This won’t be some sort of preachy message about whether guys should or shouldn’t opt out of bowl games, so I’ll instead say this. I’m glad that Burden ignited Mizzou’s offense the last 3 seasons. If Saturday is indeed his last game with the Tigers before he inevitably goes off to the NFL as a potential 1st-round pick, I’ll have nothing but appreciation for what he did as a 5-star recruit who stayed in his home state and became a star. Yeah, this year could’ve gone better. The quarterback situation didn’t do him any favors with Brady Cook struggling with the deep ball early and then having a midseason injury that limited his mobility. But seeing Burden make ridiculous plays these last 3 weeks reminded me how fortunate it was that we got 3 years of watching him be electric. Here’s hoping he’s got 1 more Saturday of playmaking left at the college level.
Florida vs. Florida State — Go back to August and tell the masses that Billy Napier would be in better standing than Mike Norvell by November
It’s wild how quickly this sport can change. A year ago, Norvell was trying to go undefeated and earn a Playoff spot. Shoot, 3 weeks ago, Scott Stricklin had to put out a vote of confidence that said Napier was returning. Heading into Saturday, both coaches are in completely different places. Norvell is the coach of a 2-win team that fell off a cliff and then dug a hole to China so it could plummet some more, while Napier is the coach of a bowl-bound team that just beat consecutive ranked teams for the first time since 2018. What a time to be alive. It’s Norvell who’ll enter 2025 on even more hot seat lists than Napier, who at least has a clear foundation established with the emerging defense and the uberly talented DJ Lagway.
If Florida can avoid disaster in Tallahassee and win as a 2-touchdown favorite, an 8th win will be on the table in a bowl game. Go figure that a total 180 is the only way that doesn’t happen.
Oklahoma vs. LSU — OU has to stick with the “Jackson Arnold run-first” plan
Wait, but didn’t LSU stop the quarterback run game the last 2 weeks against DJ Lagway and Diego Pavia? Eh, both were playing through lower-body injuries. Arnold, on the other hand, has never looked better using his legs and interim OC Joe Jon Finley recognized that. Oklahoma would be wise to test that after it worked flawlessly against Alabama. See how much LSU wants to tackle in the open field. I question that a 7-4 LSU team will show up with the right mentality, even against an Oklahoma offense that’s got 10 touchdowns in 7 SEC games. Don’t forget that Arnold is still trying to show that he deserves to be OU’s QB1 for the next offensive coordinator. Beating Alabama and LSU in Death Valley to close the regular season is about as impressive of a closing argument as he could ask for.
No. 3 Texas vs. No. 20 Texas A&M — Here’s hoping this is the first of many games like this in the SEC
What do I mean by “like this,” you ask? College GameDay is in the house to see these teams play for the first time in 13 years, but announced that before this officially became essentially an SEC semifinal game. Neither program has been to an SEC Championship, which won’t be lost on Texas fans if the Longhorns take care of business in College Station because doing that in Year 1 would be quite the flex on A&M, who is in Year 13 in the SEC (that’s wild to me). Whether Greg Sankey admits it publicly or not, these teams playing with SEC Championship and Playoff possibilities is a dream scenario for the new-look SEC. A dream scenario for the Aggies would be forcing Quinn Ewers into tough spots after he appeared to play through a leg injury in the second half against Kentucky. Will that happen? Or will Ewers look healthier and deliver a showing like what we saw at Michigan?
Either way, this is a long overdue way to close Rivalry Week.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
