Well, now, didn’t everything work out nice and neat for the Southeastern Conference and its championship game?
Entering the second-to-last Saturday of the regular season, there was the potential for a six-way tie and the chaotic tiebreaker process — and the arguing — that would have come with it. Instead, the chaos came that day in the form of Florida upsetting Ole Miss and Oklahoma stunning Alabama, which removed the Rebels and Crimson Tide from the chase.
When Texas won at Texas A&M on Saturday night, the league had the clear-cut pairing of Texas (11-1, 7-1) and Georgia (10-2, 6-2), which tied for second with Tennessee in the standings but owned a head-to-head win over the Volunteers. The No. 2 Longhorns and No. 5 Bulldogs are also the SEC’s highest-ranked teams, with Tennessee at No. 6.
“It’s two teams battling for a conference championship that has eluded many teams in this conference,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said Sunday afternoon on a Zoom call. “With the new teams in our conference, the strength of this thing is just incredible. To play for the championship of this conference is really a special moment, and now we look forward to games after that in the College Football Playoff.”
Saturday’s showdown in Atlanta (4 p.m. on ABC) will mark Georgia’s seventh SEC title-game appearance in the last eight seasons and the first for Texas, which joined the league this season after spending 28 years in the Big 12 Conference.