AUSTIN, Texas — Georgia football travels to Texas for what has been billed as the biggest game of the season, and quite possibly, the biggest game in the history of DKR Memorial Stadium.
The Longhorns sit No. 1 in the nation with the No. 5 Bulldogs coming to town in a battle for SEC supremacy in Texas’ first year in the league.
“Big games in college football matter,” Longhorns’ athletic director Chris Del Conte told Yahoo Sports, his school on the verge of packing more than 100,000 fans into his stadium on a weekend that will see Austin also hosting an Formula 1 Grand Prix race, a professional soccer match and an Eminem concert.
The television impact of the Georgia-Texas game figures to be just as noteworthy.
Indeed, sixteen of the 20 most-watched college football games this season involve an SEC team — and 10 of them featured SEC teams facing one another.
The games not only transcend the sport, but the communities, as well.
Georgia’s football success is such that Athens Ben Epps Airport might be providing daily commercial flights for the first time in a decade.
RELATED: AJC.com report on how Georgia football leading to commercial flights in Athens
College football has become a money game on all fronts, with elite student-athletes now raking in millions through recent NIL legislation and programs scrambling to find revenue models to support it.
For Texas, a win over Georgia would effectively plant a flag, establishing the Longhorns as the most dominant force in college football’s most competitive conference.
The Bulldogs, meanwhile, look to re-establish their superiority as the league’s most recent national champions, with their unprecedented CFP back-to-back titles in 2021 and 2022.
The Georgia-Texas game promises to be a sizzling nightcap on what will again be an intriguing and entertaining college football Saturday.
Georgia Tech factor
Georgia football fans don’t typically put too much focus on the in-state rival Yellow Jackets, but this Saturday might be an exception.
Georgia Tech (5-2) plays host to Notre Dame (5-1) in a 3:30 p.m. game in Atlanta’s Mercedes Benz Stadium (ESPN).
AJC.com: Georgia Tech eyes bowl eligibility with Irish coming to Atlanta for big game
The twist here is Bulldogs fans should be rooting for the Yellow Jackets, as this game has the potential to significantly impact the newly expanded College Football Playoff field of 12.
The Irish are ranked No. 12 in the most recent AP Top 25 poll and would likely make the College Football Field as an at-large should they win out.
Georgia Tech, however, can wreck Notre Dame hopes for making the CFP by handing them a what would be a second loss to an unranked team.
If the Irish are indeed eliminated, it would open-up another at-large spot in the 12-team CFP field that would most likely be filled by a two-loss — or perhaps three-loss — SEC team.
Early elimination games
SEC fans can see two other league teams fighting to keep CFP hopes alive in early Saturday action when Missouri plays host to Auburn and Oklahoma welcomes South Carolina to Norman.
Missouri already has a 41-10 loss to Texas A&M on its slate and would suffer a huge blow to its playoff resume should an unranked Auburn team march into Columbia and win the battle of Tigers.
The Sooners, already saddled with two losses — albeit, to ranked teams Tennessee and Texas — will be running on fumes when they take on former OU assistant and current Gamecocks coach Shane Beamer. A loss to unranked South Carolina would surely be a knock-out blow to Oklahoma’s postseason hopes.
The “other” big game
There was a time the “Third Saturday in October” reigned as the supreme SEC rivalry, and the Alabama-Tennessee game still holds great weight.
While it’s fair to say either or both teams could still make the 12-team CFP with a loss in the 3:30 p.m. game (ABC), this matchup will likely serve as an SEC Championship Game elimination contest.
The No. 7-ranked Crimson Tide and the No. 11-ranked Vols both lost as double-digit favorites two weeks ago (Arkansas 19, Tennessee 14; Vanderbilt 40, Alabama 35), and held on for wins as double-digit favorites last week (Alabama 27, South Carolina 25; Tennessee 23, Florida 17 (OT)).
