GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
The third major round of expansion by the Southeastern Conference will be a charm on Saturday. No. 1 Texas (6-0, 2-0 SEC) hosts No. 5 Georgia (5-1, 3-1 SEC) in prime time (6:30 p.m.) on ABC. It will be just the sixth meeting between two of the major brand names of college football for more than 60 years. Texas leads 4-1.
Now, that’s expansion that makes sense. Beats the hell out of Texas A&M (SEC member beginning in 2012 with Missouri) playing South Carolina (SEC member since 1992 with Arkansas). There will be another fun one when Alabama plays at Oklahoma – the other SEC newbie this year – on Nov. 23 for just the seventh time and first time in Norman, Oklahoma, since 2002.
Texas and Oklahoma are both major brands in college football. Missouri, Arkansas and South Carolina are not.
Georgia will be playing in Austin for the first time since 1958 when coach Wally Butts’ team lost, 13-8, to coach Darrell K Royal’s Longhorns in Memorial Stadium. Now, the stadium is called Darrell K. Royal/Texas Memorial Stadium. It’s a top five match-up. They could meet again in the new 12-team College Football Playoff. Or Georgia could be eliminated Saturday.
The game reunites two members of former Alabama coach Nick Saban’s staff, but not at the same time. Georgia coach Kirby Smart was Saban’s defensive coordinator from 2008-15. Sarkisian was Alabama’s offensive coordinator in 2019 and ’20.
“I think we both probably took some pretty good notes on trying to build a program that could be sustainable,” Sarkisian said of he and Smart working for Saban. “Not everybody’s going to be Nick Saban, but there are a lot of lessons to be learned, and there are some methods to the madness of how he goes about his business.”
Saban will also be in Austin Saturday as a member of the crew of ESPN’s College GameDay, which will air from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m.
Georgia’s only win over Texas was, 10-9, on Jan. 2, 1984, in the Cotton Bowl.
Texas won the last meeting, 28-21, in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1, 2019. And the Bulldogs nearly lost their mascot, Uga X, when he was allowed to walk too close to Texas’ mascot Bevo – a cow breed called a Longhorn – on the sidelines in a scheduled meet and greet before the game. Bevo charged briefly, but the English Bulldog got away as order was restored. If one of those horns had got Uga, it could have been very bad. Uga X passed away early this year at age 10 from natural causes after retiring.
“I do not know that,” Smart said Wednesday on the SEC teleconference when asked if Uga XI would be making the trip. “I mean, I’ll be honest with you. I’m still worried about Texas. I’ve got my hands full with their team. I don’t. I don’t know the answer to that.”
Uga XI, who is only 2, will not be making the trip, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“He is really young and immature and crazy as hell,” Uga XI’s owner Charles Seiler of Savannah told the AJC.
That’s not a good combination.
Smart may be more focused on not pushing an opposing quarterback out of the way, which he clearly did to Mississippi State’s Michael Van Buren, Jr. last week on the sidelines.
Smart did push Van Buren while not looking directly at him, though. He may have thought he was one of his players as he tried to get to his defensive coordinator Glenn Schumann. Smart reached out to State coach Jeff Lebby and to Van Buren not long after the game to apologize after seeing the film.
“I think I was going after Schumann,” Smart said after Georgia’s 41-31 win in Athens. “I was trying to get Schumann’s attention. We were trying to change personnel.”
Van Buren had just been pushed out of bounds near Smart on the Georgia sideline. Lebby and Van Buren were fine with Smart’s apology. But SEC commissioner Greg Sankey was not completely, whether Smart unintentionally pushed Van Buren or not.
“Coaches cannot make contact with an opposing player,” Sankey said in a statement. “This play should have resulted in enforcement of an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. As Kirby discussed in his press conference, he has appropriately reached out to Mississippi State head coach Jeff Lebby and quarterback Michael Van Buren. I am confident the contact was not intentional, and the clear expectation is this conduct will not happen again.”
SEC SATURDAY SCHEDULE
Auburn at No. 19 Missouri, 11 a.m., ESPN.
South Carolina at Oklahoma, 11:45 a.m., SEC Network.
No. 7 Alabama at No. 11 Tennessee, 2:30 p.m., ABC.
No. 14 Texas A&M at Mississippi State, 3:15 p.m., SEC Network.
No. 8 LSU at Arkansas, 6 p.m., ESPN.
Ball State at Vanderbilt, 6 p.m., ESPN+, SEC Network+.
No. 5 Georgia at No. 1 Tennessee, 6:30 p.m., ABC.
Kentucky at Florida, 6:45 p.m., SEC Network.
THE GUILBEAU POLL
1.TEXAS (6-0, 2-0 SEC).
2. TEXAS A&M (5-1, 3-0).
3. LSU (5-1, 2-0).
4. Alabama (5-1, 2-1).
5. Georgia (5-1, 3-1).
6. Missouri (5-1, 1-1).
7. Arkansas (4-2, 2-1).
8. Tennessee (5-1, 2-1).
9. Ole Miss (5-2, 1-2).
10. Vanderbilt (4-2, 2-1).
11. Oklahoma (4-2, 1-2).
12. South Carolina (3-3, 1-3).
13. Kentucky (3-3, 1-3).
14. Florida (3-3, 1-2).
15. Auburn (2-4, 0-3).
16. Mississippi State (1-5, 0-3).
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“This one will be around forever.”
-Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin following 29-26 loss at LSU in overtime after leading 10-0 in the second quarter and appearing in command.
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