League title game set, but drama still lingers
The calendar has barely hit November and the Southeastern Conference championship game matchup is already set: Alabama will meet Georgia for the league title.
It’s the earliest in the season that both division winners have been decided since the league split into two groups in 1992.
Both are trying to remain focused before their Dec. 1 showdown in Atlanta.
“When you become lackadaisical, that is when you slip up as a team,” Georgia offensive lineman Andrew Thomas said. “We are working to get better because we have to win out the rest of the way to be where we want to be.”
No. 1 Alabama (No. 1 College Football Playoff) clinched its division with a 29-0 win over LSU while No. 5 Georgia (No. 5 CFP) beat Kentucky 34-17 to secure its spot in the title game.
While the Crimson Tide and Bulldogs try not to look ahead to the SEC championship game, the other 12 teams are playing with a sense of urgency with plenty of unanswered questions to be answered during the final weeks of the regular season.
ANOTHER TEXAS A&M NOSEDIVE?
One reason Texas A&M fired coach Kevin Sumlin after last season was the Aggies always seemed to fall apart in November.
Turns out the new coach might have the same problem.
First-year coach Jimbo Fisher and the Aggies (5-4, 3-3) are trying to bounce back from a two-game losing skid when they host Ole Miss on Saturday.
“Learning to win is a learned behavior,” Fisher said. “Learning to dominate a game is a learned behavior. And we have to put ourselves in those experiences as much as we possibly can to understand how to do that.”
ARKANSAS’ LAST CHANCES
It’s been a rough season for Arkansas and first-year coach Chad Morris, which could finish with a winless SEC record for the first time since 2013.
The Razorbacks (2-7, 0-5) have been competitive in several league games, especially against Texas A&M and Ole Miss. But their schedule down the stretch is not easy: They host No. 9 LSU on Saturday before travelling to face No. 18 Mississippi State and Missouri in the final two games.
DREW LOCK MOVING UP CHARTS
Lock has 11,089 career yards passing to rank sixth in SEC history. Lock has no shot at breaking former Georgia quarterback Aaron Murray’s SEC record of 13,166, but the Missouri senior should get to second place on the list.
Lock has three more regular-season games plus the possibility of a bowl game. Ranking second on the SEC’s career passing yardage list is David Greene, who threw for 11,528 yards at Georgia from 2001-04.