ATHENS, Ga. - Texas A&M is deep into its eighth football season as a member of the Southeastern Conference.
On Saturday afternoon, the Aggies will play Georgia for the first time since joining the league.
"Our conference is big with a lot of good football teams," Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart said this week, "and it takes time to circle it."
The Texas A&M at Georgia matchup will be the SEC's last head-to-head pairing to transpire since the Aggies and Missouri joined in 2012, which expanded the league from 12 to 14 members. The conference implemented "bridge schedules" in 2012 and 2013 before determining a set plan in 2014 for rotating cross-divisional showdowns that runs through 2025.
By adding two teams to create two seven-team divisions and by choosing to maintain an eight-game conference schedule, the SEC assured itself of a slew of infrequent contests. Auburn and Florida played last month for the first time since 2011, while Alabama and South Carolina met in September for the first time since 2010.
"It's just the way the SEC schedule is," Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher said Monday during his weekly news conference. "I know they're looking at some formats going forward - maybe keeping three main opponents and rotating five and all those things - but I think it is good for your players eventually to be able to play everybody in the conference.
"It's good to say you've played that team or been in that stadium and those things, but when you have conferences as big as you have now, that's kind of the way it goes."
Georgia and Texas A&M have played five times previously, with the Bulldogs winning the most recent matchup, 44-20 in the 2009 Independence Bowl.
When Missouri and Texas A&M came aboard, the SEC welcomed each school by giving it a marquee cross-divisional home game. The Aggies hosted Florida in 2012, when the Tigers were visited by Alabama with the Crimson Tide coming off a national championship season.
There have been two Alabama-Missouri and Florida-Texas A&M games that have been played before the first Georgia-Texas A&M contest largely due to the bridge scheduling. The next matchup between the Bulldogs and Aggies, barring the two programs meeting for the league championship, will take place in 2024 in College Station.
While Georgia remained No. 4 in the College Football Playoff rankings released Tuesday night with its 9-1 record and having already clinched the SEC East title with its 6-1 league mark, the Aggies are on a four-game winning streak and are coming off a 30-6 blistering of South Carolina. Texas A&M is 7-3 overall, 3-3 in league play and No. 24 in the Associated Press poll but has yet to crack the CFP rankings.
"I think they are just very overlooked with LSU, Alabama and Auburn kind of overshadowing them in the West a little bit," Georgia senior tight end Eli Wolf said, "and I think they're a super-talented football team that doesn't get the credit it deserves."
Said Bulldogs redshirt freshman outside linebacker Azeez Ojulari: "It's going to be a great atmosphere and a great environment for sure. It will be our first time, so we'll see."
Saturday's game at Sanford Stadium is at 3:30 p.m., which will mark the third time in four weeks the Bulldogs play on CBS.
Wolf is a graduate transfer who began his career at Tennessee and traveled to the 2016 showdown between the Volunteers and the Aggies at Kyle Field in College Station. The Vols were ranked No. 9 entering that game and the Aggies No. 8, and it more than lived up to the hype, with Texas A&M escaping 45-38 in double overtime.
"It was a cool game," Wolf said. "I remember it being one of the loudest places I've ever been."
Texas A&M has the largest stadium (102,733) and the largest enrollment (68,625) in the SEC.
The Bulldogs are on high alert this week, not only because of their emotional win at Auburn last Saturday but in facing a West foe that already has a win over every East team it has played. In fact, the Aggies have won nine consecutive cross-divisional games.
"Their team is not intimidated by any environment," Smart said. "They go to Clemson and play. They go to Tuscaloosa and play every other year. They get to play at Auburn every other year. They get to play at LSU every other year. That's not going to be what this game is about. They grew up in Texas high school football - like 80% of their team is Texas-made.
"They've got a good football team, and they're going to be in every game they play, because they're well-coached and have good football players."
Odds and ends
Smart said after Tuesday's practice that senior defensive tackle Julian Rochester, who underwent ACL surgery in the offseason and has played against Tennessee and Florida, could redshirt this season. ... Georgia is among the 10 semifinalists for the Joe Moore Award, which is presented to college football's top offensive line, with Alabama, Kentucky and LSU the other semifinalists from the SEC. ... Smart said receiver Lawrence Cager and offensive linemen Ben Cleveland and Cade Mays have practiced this week.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524. Follow him on Twitter @DavidSPaschall.