It's perhaps not quite the Week 1 slate that launched this season, but there's arguably more depth of big-time showdowns in college football's Week 3. FootballScoop dives in.
No. 6 Georgia visits No. 15 Tennessee, and the Vols haven't won this game on Rocky Top since Mark Richt's final season patrolling the hedges in Athens, Georgia. And even in that game, the Vols cratered themselves into an early, 24-3 deficit before storming back for victory.
A year later with Kirby Smart on the sidelines at Sanford Stadium in Smart's debut year, Georgia got a late Jacob Eason TD pass for what appeared to be the game-winning score. Instead, Vols QB Josh Dobbs hit Jauan Jennings for a walk-off Hail Mary touchdown from midfield.
Tennessee hasn't won since then in the series, and it largely has not been competitive.
But Josh Heupel guided Tennessee to the first-ever 12-team College Football Playoff a year ago, and Georgia remains the lone traditional SEC power that Heupel's Vols have not defeated.
FootballScoop's resident coach, Doug Samuels, likes the Vols in this game and touts their vertical-choice offense as being key. As Samuels notes, Georgia has not been an effective big-play offense.
If Tennessee continues Georgia's plodding ways on offense, the Bulldogs will be hard-pressed to make it nine-straight in the series.
But if the Bulldogs pick this weekend as their offensive awakening ... Tennessee's near decade-long misery in this border rivalry might be perpetuated.
Georgia Tech needs Haynes King to play at quarterback and stay healthy enough to play the whole game for the Yellow Jackets to be able to send No. 12 Clemson to a second early-season loss. The Tigers won this game going away last year, 42-24.
The best quarterback matchup of the weekend might just be under the lights of Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia, S.C., where Shane Beamer's South Carolina Gamecocks led by LeNorris Sellers host Vanderbilt and star quarterback Diego Pavia.
Plus, we look at the 'Backyard Brawl' in Rich Rodriguez's return to that West Virginia-Pitt rivalry, Deion Sanders and Colorado travel to Houston while Kansas State, struggling early, travels to 2-0 Arizona.
Plenty more in FootballScoop's College Football Week 3 Preview.
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