The second half of the college football regular season begins this week, and we can only hope that it clears the bar set by the first half. We’ve had seven matchups between AP top-15 teams, and four of them were awesome games decided by a combined 14 points. Meanwhile, we’ve also had 10 unranked teams upsetting top-15 teams, including three top-5s. When the biggest games are great, and there are unexpected plot twists at every turn, you know you’ve got one hell of a season on your hands.
Between the Oregon-Ohio State headliner, a Penn State-USC overtime thriller and the unexpected chaos of Illinois-Purdue, the Big Ten took center stage last Saturday. On paper, it appears it will be the SEC’s turn to hog the spotlight in Week 8. The league currently has five teams in the AP top 11, and four of them will pair off against each other Saturday. That includes No. 1 Texas vs. No. 5 Georgia in a Saturday night main event. (We’re also getting one of the most reliably nutty games of recent history: LSU vs. Arkansas for the Golden Boot.)
The College Football Playoff stakes are ramping up, so there’s plenty to follow in that regard. And lord only knows which wacky fourth quarters we’ll be trying to keep up with. Here’s everything you need to follow over yet another exciting college football weekend.
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Georgia-Texas | Bama-Tennessee
Upset alerts? | Big 12 silliness
Epic small-school showcase
Chaos superfecta | Week 7 playlist
The Game of the Year of the Week
No. 5 Georgia at No. 1 Texas (7:30 p.m., ABC/ESPN+)
In 1970, before a record crowd in Austin’s Memorial Stadium, top-ranked Texas destroyed No. 4 Arkansas 42-7 in a rematch of their classic 1-versus-2 game in Fayetteville the year before. The Longhorns rushed for 464 yards out of their vaunted wishbone, and after Texas made a second-quarter goal-line stand with the score 14-7, it was one-way traffic. It was UT’s 30th straight win, and it clinched a second straight national title in the coaches poll.
In Texas’ entire football history, that’s the only time the Longhorns have hosted a top-five opponent as the No. 1 team in the country. Now it happens a second time.
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at www.espn.com – Notre Dame Fighting Irish…