NWADG College Football

38 NWA COLLEGE FOOTBALL PREVIEW | 9.20.2020 MISSISSIPPI STATE AT LSU, SEPT. 26 It's the SEC return for Mississippi State Coach Mike Leach. Leach last was on the sideline for an SEC game in 1998 when he was Kentucky's offensive coordinator. After good runs at Texas Tech and Washington State, where Leach proved he could win at out-of-the-way places such as Lubbock, Texas, and Pullman, Wash., he'll see if he can work his magic in Starkville, Miss. LSU opens defense of its SEC and national championships having lost a slew of NFL players and some assistant coaches, but the Tigers still have a talented roster. TEXAS A&M AT ALABAMA, OCT. 3 Aggies Coach Jimb0 Fisher will try — again — to be the first former Nick Saban assistant to beat him in a head coaching matchup. Saban is 19-0 against his former assistants, including 3-0 vs. Fisher, who went 0-1 at Florida State against his former boss and so far is 0-2 in SEC matchups. Texas A&M lured Fisher from FSU with a 10-year, $75 million contract to beat Alabama and win SEC and national titles. After Fisher's first two Aggies' teams were 9-4 and 8-5, Texas A&M is ready to start seeing a bigger return on its investment. AUBURN AT GEORGIA, OCT. 3 The Tigers and Bulldogs will meet for the 125th time in a game first played in 1892 – Auburn won 10-0 in Atlanta – and which is billed as "The South's Oldest Rivalry." The teams' previous 82 regular-season meetings were in November, but the coronavirus has changed a lot of things. So the Tigers and Bulldogs will play in October for the first time since Auburn's 20-13 victory on Oct. 24, 1936, in Columbus, Ga. Georgia has dominated of late with a 6-1 record since 2014. The Tigers' lone victory in that span was 40-7 at Jordan-Hare Stadium in 2017, but Georgia came back to beat Auburn 28-7 in the SEC Championship Game that season. Georgia has won six in a row in the series at home since Auburn won in Athens, Ga., 31-30 in 2005. FLORIDA AT TEXAS A&M, OCT. 10 The Gators will play at Kyle Field for the first time since Oct. 14, 2012, when they beat the Aggies 20-17 in Texas A&M's first SEC game. It's only the fifth time Florida has played Texas A&M and just the third SEC matchup. The Aggies got some payback when they won 19-17 at The Swamp in 2017. Florida's Dan Mullen and Texas A&M's Jimbo Fisher will meet as head coaches for the first time. Fisher was 7-1 vs. Florida when he was Florida State's coach – before Mullen became the Gators' coach. Mullen was 3-3 against Texas A&M when he was Mississippi State's coach. GEORGIA AT ALABAMA, OCT. 17 Bulldogs Coach Kirby Smart, who was Nick Saban's defensive coordinator with the Tide, has faced his mentor twice previously. Alabama won narrowly both times. Those matchups were in the College Football Playoff title game in 2017 and SEC Championship Game in 2018. This game could be the preview of another postseason matchup. It will be the first regular-season game between Alabama and Georgia since Oct. 3, 2015, when the No. 13 Tide beat the No. 8 By now, we were supposed to have enjoyed marquee nonconference matchups such as Alabama-USC, LSU- Texas, Tennessee-Oklahoma, Auburn- North Carolina, Virginia-Georgia and Arkansas-Notre Dame. But those games were canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic. That doesn't mean there aren't SEC football games to still be enjoyed. In fact, because of the virus, SEC football will feature more conference games than ever. There will be 11 weeks of SEC vs. SEC — good on good as coaches like to say in practice when the starters go at it — as all the teams play 10 conference games for the first time. It's great for the TV networks and fans. Maybe not so great for the players — given how an eight-game SEC schedule already was a pretty tough grind — and likely Alabama's Nick Saban is the only coach who's happy about it. It's a little easier to lobby for a 10- game SEC schedule when you've led Alabama to five national titles since 2009. Oh, and Alabama got Kentucky and Missouri added to its schedule when nonconference games were canceled, while Arkansas got Florida and Georgia. The Crimson Tide already were playing Georgia, but the SEC couldn't have added Florida to Alabama's schedule and let the Razorbacks play Kentucky? Not that the Wildcats are an easy opponent. They've become pretty good under Coach Mark Stoops. But they're also 1-32 vs. Florida in their last 33 matchups. So it's good to be Alabama in the SEC. TOP SEC GAMES EACH WEEK BY BOB HOLT THE MATCHUPS Having an All-SEC schedule makes it tough to select the best game each week, but here are our choices. We actually cheated one week — Oct. 3 — and made two choices for an even dozen top games for the season. AP Photo/John Raoux Florida head coach Dan Mullen watches his team warm up before an NCAA college football game against Colorado State, in Gainesville, Fla. No. 9 Florioda and No. 7 Georgia play in Jacksonville, Fla., Saturday, Oct. 27.

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