• If Texas and Texas A&M win out, the winner of the Nov. 30 game will automatically advance to the SEC championship game Dec. 7 in Atlanta.
• Texas and Texas A&M are are tied atop the SEC standings at 5-1 with four teams behind them with two losses each.

Only two teams control their destiny when it comes to winning the Southeastern Conference. And they play another.

But not this weekend.

Texas football and Texas A&M football are on a collision course to play for a spot in the conference title game, but that hype won’t reach a fevered pitch until Thanksgiving weekend.

The path is open but the winning still must happen to get there. Either say, the Horns and Aggies can’t assume wins are coming against either Kentucky or Auburn. Too many upsets have already happened to buy into point spreads or an opponent’s recent struggles.

When the No. 3 Longhorns take the field for Senior Day against the unranked Wildcats, they will apparently walk into Royal-Memorial with no thoughts of the Aggies and the resumption of a football rivalry that’s been lying dormant for the last 14 years.

The same goes for the guys in College Station (wink, wink).

Horns face a Kentucky team that’s struggled lately

Since losing 13-12 against Georgia on Sept. 14, the 4-6 Wildcats have gone 1-4 in conference play. But that win was a 20-17 doozy at Ole Miss, which is currently playing as well as anyone in the country.

The league has been all over the place in 2024 from that UK upset in Oxford to Vanderbilt posting wins over Alabama and at Kentucky one season after the Commodores went 2-10 overall and 0-8 in conference play.

“That’s obviously the craziness of the SEC,” UT tight end Gunnar Helm said. “Everybody’s good and everybody’s beating everybody. There’s not one team that’s sticking out that’s beating everybody like there’s been in years past. So everybody’s good. Every road win in the SEC is huge, and we know that, but obviously, we’ve got to move forward and get ready for a great Kentucky team coming in here.”

The Longhorns avoided the upset bug in a real dogfight over the weekend, and the 20-10 decision over Arkansas was rightfully celebrated by a locker room that’s won 10 straight road games dating back to the 2022 season. Six of those victories have come by double digits.

One thing is for certain. If I’m either one of those teams from Texas that sit atop the conference with 5-1 records, the last thing I’d want would be to be stuck in a quagmire of programs that could all finish the regular season at 6-2 and be at the mercy the tiebreaker gods. That should go double for Texas which lost to Georgia, one of those that’s desperate to remain inside the top 12 of the College Football Playoff rankings.

Texas is no stranger to scoreboard watching

Coach Steve Sarkisian said the Horns can take a lesson from the 2023 team that was scoreboard-watching as it fought to secure a spot in the playoff, which was just four teams at the time. 

“We were at the mercy of other teams dictating our fate and our future,” Sarkisian said. “Last year, we said, ‘Hey, we’re going to control what we do’ and we’ve kind of continued to sing that same song this year with what we’re doing. I think our players, in a weird way, they see all that.”

The big difference is the comfort in them knowing that two wins and another in Atlanta will get them a first-round bye and a spot in the national quarterfinals.

“They recognize that, but they’re so focused on what’s happening right now and what’s right in front oft hem, that I don’t know if they’re that concerned about that,” Sarkisian said. “But they’re so focused on ‘Man, I just want to play good this week,’ and that for a coach… that’s a really good place to be.”

As for Saturday, expect to see a lot of pregame pageantry as locker room veterans like Helm, Jahdae Barron, Barryn Sorrell, Alfred Collins, Jake Majors, left tackle Kelvin Banks Jr. and yes, quarterback Quinn Ewers — who was mum on the possibility of coming back for a fourth season — will take center stage. But the goal is the goal.

The Horns aren’t winning with style, but they’re winning behind a defense that’s on pace to be the best in school history and an offense that has made the right plays at the right time to keep its conference title dreams on the right track.

Three seasons after a 5-7 nightmare that was its head coach’s first season, the Horns are so close to making SEC history, which would come with beating their heated rival when a whole nation will be watching. 

Ahem, in two weeks.

Saturday’s game

Kentucky (4-6, 1-6) at No. 3 Texas (9-1, 5-1), 2:30 p.m., ABC, 1300, 98.1, 105.3 (Spanish)

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