Everyone looking at the 2024 college football schedule thought there would be a reckoning game in the SEC on November 14th. But almost no one expected whose reckoning it would be.
Tennessee travels to Athens this weekend to challenge the University of Georgia in one of only two games that match ranked teams. (The other is No. 23 Clemson vs. No. 21 South Carolina. Knock yourselves, y’all.) It’s no surprise that both the Vols and Dawgs enter the weekend highly ranked. However, it is a surprise where they are.
One-loss Tennessee arrives in Athens with a clear path to the SEC Championship and a CFP first-round bye. Head coach Josh Heupel and quarterback Nico Iamaleava have finally delivered a team worthy of the atmosphere and shout of Neyland Stadium, and they buried Alabama’s bones in the checkerboard field to prove it.
Two-loss Georgia, on the other hand, suddenly finds itself outside the current (meaningless) playoffs and on the verge of missing the entire 12-team playoff. It’s quite a fall for the 2021-2022 national champions, who fully expected the Kirby Smart juggernaut to deliver title after title in the post-Nick Saban era.
And of course that can still happen. But it’s a lot harder for Georgia now, which means it’s a lot harder for everyone. The transfer portal, NIL riches – which can have both positive and negative effects – and the absolute necessity of staying cooped up every Saturday of every autumn have all led to this: another Game of the Year in a season already full of them .
Heupel, like all SEC coaches in the 21st century, knows exactly how to make the right respectful-while-nothing statement about his upcoming opponent. “Extremely talented, extremely well coached,” he said earlier this week. “They play hard. They play basic sound. They’ll make sure you earn it in every way possible, and that will be a great, great environment…’
You get the idea. No one posts motivational material on message boards anymore; social media can handle that task well. Heupel understands how not to end up in an Instagram image with “We’re going to kennel the Dawgs” or some other inflammatory phrase for him. It’s a sensible strategy, even if it doesn’t produce exciting content.
Smart, on the other hand, did a nice job of creating some social media heat this week, even though he coached it on his own team instead of in Tennessee. He called one of his own players an “idiot” for celebrating with Ole Miss (technically, while his friends were wearing Ole Miss gear), then walked back.
The big question for Tennessee is Iamaleava’s health. The Knoxville News reported this this week, although no official announcement has been made. Heupel called Iamaleava in “good form” on Monday, but a report on Wednesday listed him as “questionable.” Iamaleava’s availability is probably the main reason behind the 10-point-and-up oddsmakers line currently in Georgia’s favor.
On the other side of the ball, Georgia faces important questions about its identity. Which Bulldog team will show up on Saturday? The fearsome team that eviscerated Texas and Clemson on the road and rallied from a 28-0 deficit against Alabama? Or the wavering, directionless bunch that battled Kentucky and looked lost against Ole Miss? Will Carson Beck look like the Heisman hopeful in his early season, or the eavesdropper of recent weeks? Beck’s 12 interceptions lead the SEC, and each one is a dagger in the Dawgs’ fading hopes of dominating the conference again.
So what’s at stake here? It is difficult to determine the CFP committee’s exact motives, but losses – regardless of opponent – will weigh heavily in their calculations. That’s bad news for Georgia, which can’t afford another L at the plate and expects to make the playoff field. (Is a three-loss Georgia better than a two-loss program from another conference? Probably, but you are what your record says you are.)
For Tennessee, a loss puts the Vols in the bubbling cauldron of two-loss SEC teams. The momentum and current high ranking should be enough to get Tennessee into the playoffs, and likely a hosting slot – assuming Tennessee wins, with Vanderbilt looming, of course. But a win would almost certainly result in a berth in the SEC Championship against the winner of Texas-Texas A&M – again, assuming the favorites win.
So that’s what we’re looking at this weekend: a chance for one program to reach the next level, a chance for the other to fend off the darkness. It’s exactly what we want from a late-season college football game. How about that? After all, the play-offs did not ruin the regular season.
