Georgia
SEC title game scenarios: Auburn upset sets up Georgia vs. Texas-Texas A&M winner in Atlanta
Rival programs Texas and Texas A&M will meet next Saturday for the first time in 13 years and will have an SEC championship game berth on the line when they do.
The winner between the No. 3 Longhorns and No. 15 Aggies will clinch a berth in the SEC title game and will play No. 10 Georgia. The SEC office confirmed Saturday night that following Week 13’s results, the Bulldogs have clinched a spot in the conference title game for the fourth consecutive season.
That’s the unexpected outcome of a stunning day of upsets in the SEC, which saw Ole Miss and Alabama eliminated by taking a third loss, No. 11 Tennessee eliminated because of tiebreakers and Georgia clinch a spot after the new tiebreaker rules were examined.
Here’s a look at the top four teams in the standings heading into Week 14:
| Team | SEC record | Final SEC opponent |
|---|---|---|
|
6-1 |
at Texas A&M |
|
|
6-2 |
n/a |
|
|
5-2 |
Texas |
|
|
5-2 |
at Vanderbilt |
Breaking down the SEC scenarios
• If Texas wins next week, then it has the best record and No. 1 seed. Georgia would then be the second seed whether or not Tennessee wins against Vanderbilt, as Georgia owns the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Volunteers.
• If Texas A&M wins, it creates either a three-way or four-way tie for first place, depending on whether Tennessee wins. None of the first tiebreakers would appear to apply, so it would go to schedule strength. Texas A&M has that edge right now, and according to the SEC office calculations that would still hold after next week. Here is what they are after this weekend’s games:
| Team | Opponents’ cumulative conference record |
|---|---|
|
28-30 |
|
|
26-32 |
|
|
26-35 |
|
|
23-36 |
But that would only clinch the first seed, and the tiebreaker process would go back to the beginning with the remaining three teams. In that case, Georgia would get the second seed, by virtue of having beaten Tennessee and Texas.
If Texas A&M wins but Tennessee loses, then Georgia still gets the spot via its head-to-head win over the Longhorns.
The bottom line: It’s complicated.
Here are the six SEC tiebreakers, in order:
- Head-to-head competition among the tied teams
- Record versus all common conference opponents among the tied teams
- Record against highest (best) placed common conference opponent in the conference standings, and proceeding through the conference standings among the tied teams
- Cumulative conference winning percentage of all conference opponents among the tied teams
- Capped relative total scoring margin versus all conference opponents among the tied teams
- Random draw of the tied teams
How Auburn upset the Aggies
Auburn receiver KeAndre Lambert-Smith made a leaping catch in the middle of the end zone of a two-point conversion pass from quarterback Payton Thorne in the fourth overtime that proved to be the game winner. Texas A&M had a chance to match it, but Marcel Reed’s rollout pass to Amari Daniels was dropped. Auburn fans stormed the field at Jordan-Hare Stadium to celebrate the win, its first over a ranked team in the Hugh Freeze era.
The Tigers (5-6, 2-5) raced out to a 21-0 second quarter lead behind their passing game. Thorne connected on four pass plays of 15 or more yards in the first quarter alone, including a 63-yard touchdown pass to Cam Coleman and a 60-yard completion to Lambert-Smith.
Texas A&M charged back with three touchdowns on its next four drives to tie the game at 21 with 7:57 to go in the third quarter. Aggies receiver Noah Thomas (five catches, 124 yards) accounted for two of those on touchdown catches of 14 and 73 yards in the third quarter.
Auburn running back Jarquez Hunter (130 rushing yards, three touchdowns) gave the Tigers a 28-21 lead, but Texas A&M responded with a Randy Bond field goal and an 8-yard Daniels touchdown run to take a 31-28 lead with 4:01 left in the fourth quarter.
The Tigers penetrated inside A&M’s 10 in the final minute but settled for a game-tying field goal at the end of regulation.
The teams traded touchdowns in the first overtime and field goals in the second overtime. By rule, teams must attempt alternating two-point conversion plays beginning in the third overtime. Both teams failed to convert theirs in the third overtime.
Looking ahead
Despite the loss, the Aggies still have a chance to make it to the SEC title game for the first time in school history. Texas A&M joined the SEC in 2012 but failed to win its division under Kevin Sumlin or Jimbo Fisher.
New coach Mike Elko has a chance to do something neither of his predecessors could, but it will require an upset of rival Texas. A loss will eliminate the Aggies from College Football Playoff contention since they’ll be ranked well outside the top 12.
The Longhorns visit Kyle Field next week, the first time since 2011 the rivals will meet and the 119th edition of the rivalry. Texas leads the all-time series 76-37-5 and won the last meeting 27-25 on a Justin Tucker field goal as time expired.
Earlier in the day, Georgia wasn’t considering the SEC championship a strong possibility, much less clinching a spot before the day was over. More of the discussion had been about whether it would be better to miss the game, rest and prepare for the first round of the Playoff, rather than risk a loss and drop further in the rankings.
“We haven’t really discussed it,” guard Tate Ratledge said. “If it falls into place, we’re going to do our best to go up there and do our best to win it. But if it doesn’t it doesn’t. Right now we’re just focused on (Georgia) Tech.”
(Photo: Michael Chang / Getty Images)
Georgia
Georgia gubernatorial candidate echoes MS’s late-Gov. Kirk Fordice
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USA Today Network
Kirk Fordice-like Rick Jackson is sounding a whole lot like Daniel Kirkwood Fordice as he tries to be elected Georgia’s next governor.
Fordice came out of nowhere — actually, Vicksburg is somewhere but you know what I mean — in 1991 to become a two-term Mississippi governor.
He had money but nothing like Jackson, a billionaire businessman who’s also trying to emerge from nowhere politically to win Georgia’s top office.
“The establishment hated Trump, because they couldn’t control him. They are going to hate me,” Jackson says in an ad for Georgia’s Republican Primary on May 19, sounding like one of my favorite Mississippi governors — Fordice, because of his unpredictable personality (he could vilify or charm you, all in one sentence), not his politics. He died in 2004 of cancer.
I stood by a cafe entrance one morning, waiting to cover a Fordice speech. When he appeared, I stuck out my hand to shake his. “I’m not shaking your damn hand. You’re part of the problem down there (referring to the newspaper),” he told me, smiling and moving on.
Jackson rose to become one of economic giant-Georgia’s wealthiest people. He came from Atlanta’s rough midtown area, ending up in the foster care system. He left college due to poor financial circumstances.
The 71-year-old Jackson wormed his way into the dynamic city’s business scene in the late 1970s, mostly of the healthcare variety with mixed success before starting a workforce staffing and services company and later an antibiotics manufacturing plant. He turned those businesses into billion-dollar enterprises.
“It’s God’s money,” he said in rural Blakely, and he’s been charitable with it.
Jackson doesn’t try to hide his vast wealth. His family lives in a 48,000-square-foot mansion at Cumming, a place of nearly 100,000 people near Atlanta in Forsyth County, which once promoted its almost all-white population as a virtue.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Bill Torpy recently wrote that Jackson will spend a ton of his own money in seeking another mansion, the one occupied by Georgia’s governor. Torpy noted that present Lt. Gov. Burt Jones was once heavily favored to win the primary race, but he’s fallen behind Jackson’s bold money bid.
“The one-time front-runner in the Republican primary (Jones) has been relegated to No. 2, the result of a $100 million Mack truck running him over.
Rick Jackson, a billionaire healthcare tycoon, a man with a sly smile and reptilian gaze, is the guy driving that truck,” Torpy wrote.
The GOP field includes Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, who spurned Trump’s demand to find 11,780 votes that would’ve allowed him to win Georgia in 2020.
Fordice was effective with some bombastic rhetoric during his run for governor, but I don’t remember it reaching the histrionic level employed by Jackson. In a major ad blitz, often referencing (Georgia college student) Laken Riley’s murderer, Jackson promises that unauthorized immigrants committing violent crimes will be “deported or departed … any questions?”
In another ad, Jackson growled, “Like President Trump, I don’t owe anybody anything, and like you, I’m sick of career politicians.”
Fordice spent only $1 million to get himself elected Mississippi’s governor. He somewhat sneaked up on the establishment, riding no escalator to the first floor of his Vicksburg concrete river mats-contracting office to declare his intentions. Who could ever forget his announcement seeking the governorship that ran on page 5 of the Clarion Ledger?
Recent polling ahead of Georgia’s May primaries for governor shows the eventual Republican nominee faces a strong Democrat in the November general election, most likely former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms. That’ll require another whole pot of money.
— Mac Gordon, a native of McComb, is a retired Mississippi newspaperman. He can be reached at macmarygordon@gmail.com.
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