In this weekly college football preview space, we talk about just about everything. We eat the whole cow. We embrace all the little nooks and crannies of this ridiculously huge sport.
When there's a big game, however, we embrace that, too.
It's No. 1 vs. No. 2 week. When Tennessee and Georgia kick off at 3:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, it will be only the third time since 2006 that the top two teams in the AP poll have played in the regular season. Granted, the College Football Playoff committee made everything messy by ranking Georgia third, but don't be fooled: This one's special.
To be sure, there are all sorts of other things to talk about in a hectic and exciting Week 10 -- a potentially incredible Alabama-LSU undercard, this week's latest huge and entertaining Big 12 games, Clemson's toughest remaining game (from a win probability perspective), a particularly odd Florida State-Miami matchup, some bitter and underrated rivalry games, a potential Friday night monsoon game in Seattle and another huge game for Sacramento State's Cardiac Hornets -- we'll get to all that below. But first, we dive deep into the biggest game of the season.
Here's everything you need to follow in a dynamite Week 10.
Note: CFP rankings are used below, whether they confuse the "No. 1 vs. No. 2" vibe or not.
No. 1 vs. No. 2 and Tennessee's latest "biggest game in decades"
No. 1 Tennessee at No. 3 Georgia (3:30 p.m., CBS)
The SEC is known for history and rivalries, and justifiably so. But the conference's old scheduling policies -- both its tiny conference schedules (six games or so into the 1980s) and what amounted to almost a "schedule whoever you want" policy -- renders that history strange. Georgia has played Auburn 127 times ... and East division rival Tennessee just 51 times. The Bulldogs and Volunteers met just seven times from 1938 until the formation of the East division in 1992, and really, this rivalry has only one marquee run. From 1998 to 2005, the teams met when they were both in the top 10 four times. They hadn't done it before, and they haven't done it since. Until Saturday, anyway.