We are only a few weeks away from the college football season kicking off with some exciting nonconference matchups highlighting the September schedule but instead of touching on the games that most have discussed at length all offseason, we thought it would be interesting to look at the five best September league games in the Southeastern Conference.

Here are the five games that stand out to us entering the 2019 SEC season:

#5 Mississippi State at Auburn — Sept. 28

This matchup was arguably Mississippi State’s biggest win of 2018 after the Bulldogs were coming off consecutive losses to Kentucky and Florida. The winner of this game typically goes on to have a solid season while the loser has fallen back to the bottom of the rugged West division. A win here would give MSU two weeks to prepare heading into the toughest three-game stretch of the season (at Tennessee, vs. LSU and at Texas A&M) while Auburn gets MSU at home sandwiched between road trips to Texas A&M, Florida before hitting the road to Arkansas and LSU. Losing to Joe Moorhead’s squad could very well push Gus Malzahn’s team into a tailspin while a win could give the Tigers some confidence heading into a rough road slate.

#4 South Carolina at Missouri — Sept. 21

This game may be flying under the radars outside of the two Columbias but it could serve as a crossroads game for each program in the coming season. If the Gamecocks fail to pull off the upset against Alabama leading up to this game only to turn around and lose at Missouri, the season could be lost considering the following month’s schedule: vs. Kentucky (which has beaten USC five years in a row), at Georgia following an open date, vs. Florida and at Tennessee. For Mizzou, this appears to be the main roadblock to starting the season with a 7-0 record leading up to road trips to Kentucky and Georgia, with the trip to Athens following an open week.

#3 Tennessee at Florida — Sept. 21

If both of these teams manage to win their big nonconference matchups (vs. Miami for Florida in Week 0 and at home against BYU for Tennessee in Week 2), there’s an excellent chance both of them are undefeated heading into this matchup. Considering the fact Jeremy Pruitt seems incredibly eager to prove his team’s showing against Florida last season was a fluke, he’s consistently brought up Gainesville during Tennessee’s ongoing training camp, it hasn’t taken the second-year coach very long to figure out Vol Nation is going to judge him on how well he does in this annual series.

#2 Auburn at Texas A&M — Sept. 21

This game will be the first conference matchup for each of these programs and considering the challenges that lay ahead for each team on their respective schedules, a loss here and we can more than likely eliminate the team that walks off Kyle Field in defeat from contending in the West. Auburn plans on starting a first-year starter under center, which will make this trip to College Station the first true road start for either Bo Nix or Joey Gatewood in their college careers. The matchups on the sidelines for this game are equally as compelling as the ones on the field as Jimbo Fisher will be matching wits with Kevin Steele while Gus Malzahn will be doing the same with Mike Elko.

#1 Alabama at South Carolina — Sept. 14

Could this be the game that finally ends the narrative of Nick Saban being unbeaten against his former assistants? Leading up to this game, you’ll likely hear about Alabama’s previous trip to Columbia 1,000 times (if not more) and while the Tide losing that game back in 2010 has nothing to do with this contest, this should be Will Muschamp’s best team to date at South Carolina. If nothing else, this contest should give us a measuring stick on the progress of the Gamecock program under Muschamp, and if some Williams-Brice magic happens again, this may prove to be the signature win of the coach’s career.