This weekend, the Southeastern Conference will find its presumptive East Division winner when the Florida Gators and Georgia Bulldogs travel to Jacksonville, Florida, to play in their annual neutral-site rivalry game.
Until the final whistle blows in Jacksonville, nobody will know for sure who will come out on top in the SEC East. Florida and Georgia enter the game with one conference loss each, and neither will deny that this game is for all the marbles.
The victor of this game will earn a trip to the SEC championship game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia, on Dec. 7.
Florida and Georgia were joined in the hunt for the top spot in the East by the Missouri Tigers and South Carolina Gamecocks until week eight. Although Missouri is banned from postseason competition this season due to a NCAA violation, they were still in the race for the standings. The Tigers also appealed this ban, but have yet to hear a final decision from the NCAA.
Before Missouri lost its first conference game of the season to Vanderbilt in Nashville and South Carolina fell 38-27 to Florida in a rainy noon game at Williams-Brice Stadium, both teams found themselves in the midst of a chance to win the SEC East halfway through the season.
Missouri was undefeated in conference play prior to being upset by the Vanderbilt Commodores, who entered the matchup with a 1-5 record. The defeat cost the Tigers their spot as championship leaders, and they will not get it back.
After the Gamecocks came out of Athens victorious despite being 20-plus point underdogs, they were hungry for another upset.
Opportunity knocked on the doors of Williams-Brice Stadium ahead of the Gamecocks’ battle with a then-ranked No. 8 Gators team, which had given up about 12 points on average per game in their first seven games.
South Carolina failed to capitalize on a chance to shake up the SEC East for a second week in a row and then dropped its game away against Tennessee the next Saturday.
Alabama and LSU have likely been eyeballing the SEC East standings, wondering who they might find themselves facing down the road.
Will Nick Saban’s Crimson Tide suit up against the Bulldogs or the Gators? Or might we see Joe Burrow leading the dynamic LSU offense against Georgia or Florida’s defense?
Just as time will tell whether Alabama or LSU will ascend from the West, nobody will know for sure who will represent the East in the SEC title game until Florida and Georgia battle it out among themselves this weekend.
During the preseason, head coach Kirby Smart’s Bulldogs were the odds-in favorite to win the East for the third-consecutive year. However, the current season has shown us more parity exists in the East than originally thought.
The Gamecocks' upset win over UGA and the Commodores’ defeat of the Tigers are prime examples that no conference game should be taken for granted by any team.
Next season’s East favorite is not going to be as clear-cut as it has been in the recent past.
All seven SEC East Division football teams will have a lot to play for every time they square off with a conference opponent next season.
Those teams with aspirations of winning the East will need to walk the precarious road to the SEC Championship on their tiptoes if they want to avoid an upset along the way.