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#3 LSU, Clemson or Georgia slip in their regular-season finale
So before we get into it here, let’s first see who these teams are playing – LSU hosts Texas A&M, Clemson takes the short trip to in-state rival South Carolina and Georgia continues a long-time rivalry against Georgia Tech. Surprisingly enough, we have seen all three of those underdogs pull off major upsets in recent years or even this very season.
Texas A&M definitely hasn’t had the season they were expecting in their second year under Jimbo Fisher, now sitting at 7-4 and outside the top 25, but let’s not act like they can’t play. All four of their losses have come against top ten teams and two of those were by one score, with a near-comeback in a 19-13 defeat to Georgia just last weekend. Obviously the Aggies would be much more dangerous at College Station, but this team has gotten a lot better since their worst game of the year against Alabama.
South Carolina has already beaten a top three team this year, when they won at Athens against the Bulldogs, when the reliable Rodrigo Blankenship missed a field goal that would have sent the game to triple-overtime.
While they did give the Alabama defense some trouble early in the year, the Gamecocks just haven’t been very inconsistent throughout the season unfortunately. They have now lost four of the last five – all against unranked teams. This one should only stay close if Trevor Lawrence goes back to his early-season form and the competitiveness leads to stupid penalties for Clemson.
And then there’s Georgia Tech. It’s pretty tough to make a case for a 3-8 team that actually lost to The Citadel early on in the year, but somehow their three wins came against USF, Miami and then again surprisingly N.C. State. Once again, this would be insanity, but I will also never forget when the Yellow Jackets beat Georgia back in 2016 at their place in Kirby Smart’s first year at the program.
With all that being said, I would be shocked if any of these three contenders loses as big favorites this weekend. We see plenty of upsets by conference rivals, when they have the big brothers at their house and they are overlooked at mid-season, but all these teams know that they need to win these games. For entertainment purposes only – I think LSU would be fine if they still won the SEC, Clemson has no room for error with an incredible weak schedule and Georgia would be cooked at two losses.
