For a season of showing love and thankfulness, tension and hatred are in abundance this week. But such is the case when schools that dislike each other collide on the gridiron with so much at stake.
Welcome to rivalry week.
Though Tennessee football will not be in the picture after its third loss to Oklahoma a couple of weeks ago, it can contribute to the fuss. A win over Vanderbilt, and the Commodores will be pushed out of their first 10-win regular season in program history — and a playoff berth will likely be flushed away.
For teams like Indiana and Texas Tech, they are in firm control of a playoff berth with matchups against struggling opponents in Purdue and West Virginia, respectively. Both teams are a win away from their conference championship game, but even so, they look like locks for the playoffs.
For many other teams, the calculus is not so simple.
Countless teams face difficult matchups, and the playoff picture could look drastically different just after Friday, with Ole Miss, Georgia and Texas A&M all on the road against long-time rivals. Saturday will see many teams on the bubble fight for their lives just to have the committee decide their fate.
With so much at stake, these will be the biggest storylines to watch for over the weekend.
Lane Kiffin watch
The most interesting man in college football has grabbed the headlines again.
News has slowly trickled out that Kiffin is entertaining offers to be the new head coach for LSU and Florida, and his own athletic director announced that his decision to stay or go will be made before rivalry weekend is over.
The rationale for each job is plenty. LSU has had the best track record of the three programs over the past 15 years, having played in two national championship games and winning one. In Florida, he can follow in the footsteps of Steve Spurrier, whom Kiffin idolized and greatly respected growing up. If he stays in Oxford, he has the opportunity to cement a legacy of his own and be the greatest coach in the history of Ole Miss.
As much as Gator fans and Tiger fans on X want to tell you that they know what Kiffin will do, the fact is nobody knows what he will do. There’s a better-than-not chance that Kiffin will not make up his mind until after the Egg Bowl on Friday.
By the week’s end, the saga will be over, and one fan base will celebrate. Ultimately, Kiffin should remember that the grass is not always greener on the other side.
The two-loss clog
Oklahoma, Notre Dame, Alabama, Miami, Utah, Vanderbilt and Michigan all enter Week 14 at two losses. There is a chance that Georgia, Ole Miss and Oregon could all lose and fall to 10-2.
That is 10 teams that could stand at two losses to close the regular season, and the committee has not expanded the already-too-big playoff field.
If the chaotic scenario occurs in which all of these teams sit at two losses entering the last playoff rankings, there will be multiple teams with resumes deemed worthy that get left out. Just getting to the 11 or the 12 rank likely will not be good enough, with two of the five conference championship berths likely going to teams that will be ranked outside the top 12.
Oklahoma, Notre Dame and Alabama are all in control of their own destinies, but Notre Dame has the easiest path in front of them, facing 4-7 Stanford. The Sooners host LSU, while the Crimson Tide is in Jordan-Hare Stadium to face off with Auburn, where they have been challenged by the Tigers for years. Should one of those teams fall, the chasing pack will have the opportunity to take advantage.
The committee will face a very difficult discussion ordering all these teams, but there is one team that can completely wreck the discussion with a win.
The Michigan Problem
So, what happens if Michigan beats Ohio State? What happens if Oklahoma, Notre Dame, Alabama, Miami, Utah and Vanderbilt all win too?
Each team ahead of Michigan currently possesses a resume better than the Wolverines. But if the Wolverines knock off the Buckeyes in Ann Arbor again, the committee would be presented with quite a conundrum.
Of the teams in that group, the two with the best wins are Alabama, which won at Georgia, and Oklahoma, which won at Alabama. Yet, if Michigan wins at home, said victory over Ohio State would be the best among the two-loss teams, and that would be very difficult to argue that Michigan would not have the best resume among that cluster.
Would the committee have the gall to move the Maize and Blue ahead of all those teams? Should they? Who would get left out? All of this is hypothetical, and none of this will matter if Ohio State wins on Saturday. But if they lose, chaos will erupt, and shockwaves will be felt all around the country.
