COLLEGE STATION, Texas — With two games left in the regular season, No. 15 Texas A&M has a chance to reach the Southeastern Conference football championship game for the first time since joining the league in 2012.
If the Aggies win the remaining games on their current schedule, against Auburn and No. 3 Texas, they will be 7-1 in conference play and guaranteed a league title shot on Dec. 7 at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
“This is everything that you want, right? We haven’t been in this position as a program ever,” first-year Texas A&M coach Mike Elko said. “There’s been no time ever where Texas A&M has been in the SEC, in the last two games controlled their own destiny to go to Atlanta. And so that’s what you work for. It’s the opportunity that you’ve trained for.”
A loss by the Aggies before then, though, would create more chaos in an already tight race that could end with as many as six teams with a 6-2 league record in the first season the SEC — a 16-team conference for the first time this year with Oklahoma and Texas joining from the Big 12 — has played without divisions since 1991.
“It’s interesting because this is my first year being in the SEC without divisions … I’m just kind of thinking what would that look like now? It makes it very entertaining,” said Texas coach Steve Sarkisian, who was the offensive coordinator at SEC power Alabama under Nick Saban in 2019-20 before taking the job leading the Longhorns.
“I think college football is at an all-time high, popularity wise, people watching us,” Sarkisian added. “They want to know what’s going on. It’s not just our conference, it’s a lot of other conferences. I think it’s a good thing.”
The Aggies are currently tied with the Longhorns, their Lone Star State rivals, for the SEC’s best mark at 5-1. Texas hosts Kentucky on Saturday before the showdown with Texas A&M on Nov. 30. No. 8 Georgia is in third place at 6-2 after already wrapping up league play. Tenth-ranked Tennessee is next at 5-2, and No. 7 Alabama and No. 9 Ole Miss are next at 4-2.
Tennessee, after hosting Conference USA member UTEP on Saturday, has one conference game remaining at Vanderbilt on Nov. 30. Alabama plays Oklahoma and Auburn, and Ole Miss faces Florida and Mississippi State.
Alabama holds the head-to-head tiebreaker over Georgia after getting a 41-34 win over the Bulldogs. Georgia has the tiebreaker over Tennessee and Texas after beating both teams.
If the standings are still tied after factoring in the head-to-head competition, then records against all common conference opponents would be used to break the tie. The third level to break ties would be the records against the highest-placed common conference opponents.
Next would be cumulative conference winning percentage of all conference opponents, followed by the relative total scoring margin against all conference opponents.
If things still aren’t sorted out after all that, then the tied teams would be subject to a random draw to pick who will go to the title game.
Georgia coach Kirby Smart isn’t thinking about any of that and doesn’t even want to talk about what needs to happen for his team to reach the title game. The Bulldogs host the University of Massachusetts, a Football Bowl Subdivision independent, on Saturday before closing the regular season next week against Georgia Tech of the Atlantic Coast Conference.
“I don’t think that’s a hypothetical, the focus is on UMass. I mean, it really is,” he said. “So, why would I put energy or time into trying to figure out what the best pathway is, including the SEC championship, when I’m worried about UMass? I just don’t think it’s a quality conversation.”
While the Aggies and Elko would be thrilled to earn a spot in the conference title game, Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin isn’t so keen on qualifying for the game now that the College Football Playoff has expanded from four to 12 teams.
“The conference championship could have a big impact both ways for people,” Kiffin said. “I’ve talked to other coaches, so I’ll just give you the feeling from some other coaches that they don’t want to be in it. The reward to get a bye versus the risk to get knocked out completely, that’s a really big risk just to get a bye.”
Kiffin added that playing another game also increases the risk of injuries and then likened playing in the SEC championship matchup to gambling.
“I’m not a big gambler, but that’s kind of like one of those Vegas poker table things, like that’s all in,” he said. “And you’re going all in in the best conference in football, so you’ve got to play somebody great, too. Very different than a lot of these other conferences.”