Texas A&M visits Alabama and Auburn heads to Georgia in two top-25 matchups. Plus, can Mississippi State keep scoring? And can Oklahoma and LSU rebound?
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This is the weekend you've been waiting for in college football.
We're slowly getting to a point where all Power 5 football is going to be played, and we'll be back to something resembling a normal
college football schedule in a world that has been anything but.
Saturday's two biggest matchups --
Texas A&M at Alabama and
Auburn at Georgia -- will definitely hit those normal vibes for college football fans. The noon ET games will serve as your appetizer for the gourmet servings of top-10 SEC football in the afternoon and evening.
The Crimson Tide bring back running back
Najee Harris and wide receivers
Jaylen Waddle and
DeVonta Smith. Bama also has an experienced offensive line, with four starters back from 2019, and a defense stacked with players who will likely end up playing on Sundays.
The Aggies are ranked No. 13 but didn't look the part last weekend in a 17-12 victory over Vanderbilt.
Kellen Mond was expected to be one of the better quarterbacks in the SEC but had an average game. If you're an A&M fan, you had better hope he was just knocking off some rust. Otherwise, it could be a long afternoon in Tuscaloosa.
In the evening, the Deep South's Oldest Rivalry gives us seventh-ranked
Auburn visiting No. 4
Georgia. The two are meeting as top-10 teams for the sixth time in the rivalry's history, with Georgia having won the most recent -- the 2017 SEC championship game.
The Bulldogs come into this game not knowing exactly who they are on offense. Quarterback
D'Wan Mathis had a poor first half against Arkansas before coach Kirby Smart went with third-stringer
Stetson Bennett IV, who helped UGA pull away. USC transfer
JT Daniels has been cleared to play and could start Saturday, but we still don't know what's going on in the quarterback room at Georgia -- and Smart is not going to divulge any information on it.
Meanwhile, Tigers quarterback
Bo Nix looked solid in Auburn's opener against Kentucky, and last season against Georgia, Nix threw the ball 50 times for 245 yards and one touchdown.
In the latest
SP+ rankings, Georgia and Auburn have the Nos. 1- and 2-ranked defenses, respectively. This will please those fans who claim to love a good, low-scoring, defensive struggle.
Even if you have no rooting interest in these two games, they are still must-watch events. The variety of teams in college football is part of why we love the sport, but nothing beats top-10 matchups.
We'll see the Big Ten and Pac-12 come back later on this fall, but these two games really have us feeling as though football is already back in full force.
Buy or Sell
LSU (7:30 p.m. ET Saturday at Vanderbilt
The defending champ looked like a
shell of its former self against Mississippi State. Was that a one-off blip after a tumultuous offseason or should we anticipate real regression from the Tigers?
Lyles: Buy
I'm buying regression. I would also say that it is all right if
LSU regresses -- I mean, how do you top last season? That was one of the best college football teams we've ever seen, and whatever happens this season is bound to look bad in comparison. It just might end up being worse than any of us actually expected.
Hale: Sell
The opener was something of a perfect storm for LSU. The long layoff, the massive departures, the absence of cornerback
Derek Stingley Jr. ... and it is not as if LSU is the first team to struggle with a Mike Leach offense. There's still plenty of talent on this team. Will it mirror 2019? It might be decades before we see a team do that. But it's too soon to think the Tigers aren't going to be a competitor for the SEC title, either.
Can LSU rebound?
Here's a fun bit of trivia provided by Ralph Russo of the Associated Press: What do QB
K.J. Costello's record-setting passing day for
Mississippi State and RB
Melvin Gordon's record-setting 408-yard rushing performance for Wisconsin in 2014 have in common? That would be Bo Pelini, who was coaching the defense in both games. For all the LSU departures this offseason, the one that might've gotten the least attention was defensive coordinator Dave Aranda, largely because Pelini's arrival -- and $2.3 million contract -- suggested a smooth transition. Can Pelini fix all that ailed LSU in its opener? Well, the good news is Saturday's opponent, Vandy, isn't bringing the same firepower as Mississippi State. Where the Bulldogs put up 623 passing yards on Pelini's D last weekend, Vandy has barely eclipsed that total in its past five games combined.
What does Leach do for an encore?
Mississippi State has won seven of its past eight against Arkansas, and during that stretch has hung 50 or more on the Razorbacks three times and scored 40 or more in two others while its quarterbacks have totaled 23 passing touchdowns and just four picks. And all of that was before Leach and Costello arrived. Good luck with that, Arkansas.
Players to watch
Lyles: Texas A&M QB Kellen Mond
Mond completed 17 of 28 passes for 189 yards and a touchdown against Vanderbilt, which is fine. But given it was against the Commodores, Mond has to be much better Saturday at Alabama.
Upset picks
Lyles: Auburn over Georgia
The Bulldogs looked downright bad on offense last week -- and against
Arkansas of all teams. USC transfer quarterback Daniels has finally been cleared to play, and Smart (unsurprisingly) has said he'll wait to name a starter. But no matter who plays quarterback, he is going to have to be much better against an Auburn defense that is going to give Georgia much more trouble than Arkansas' did. If Auburn plays more consistently on offense than it did against Kentucky, the Tigers will have this one.
Hale: Ole Miss over Kentucky
If the first month of the season has taught us anything, it should probably be that we take nothing for granted. But coming off a week that included stunning upsets by Kansas State and Mississippi State, Week 5's slate really doesn't appear to have much in the way of a particularly enticing underdog. But if we've got to find one -- and we're not going to settle for a team getting just a couple points -- we'll hop aboard the Lane Train. Kiffin's Ole Miss team clearly showed it can move the ball in the opener against Florida, and Kentucky shouldn't challenge the Rebels' D the way Gators quarterback
Kyle Trask did. Do we love the pick? No. But when has Kiffin ever let anyone down? OK, don't answer that.
