Disaster did not strike over the weekend, the unthinkable was not thought, and we can proceed with the main event: A meaningful, winner-take-all Iron Bowl with the highest possible stakes on both sides and immediate national ramifications. In any year, Alabama-Auburn is one of the most intense, compelling scenes in college football, or any sport; when the records align, it’s an instant classic that tends to reverberate well beyond state lines. As of Saturday, 2017 is officially one of those years. The records are aligned. Be thankful this week for a climactic Saturday that will involve an actual climax.

Because frankly, you know, it’s been awhile. Let’s face it: The absence of a credible challenger to Alabama’s throne over the past three years has made for some perfunctory, frictionless, steadfastly boring football at the exact point on the calendar when the most sparks should be flying. The results have been as predictable in the Iron Bowl, where the Crimson Tide have taken three straight by double digits since the legendary Kick-Six game, and in the SEC Championship Game, where the scores have been even more lopsided, as they have across the rest of the schedule. And they’ve been predictable enough across the rest of the schedule to prompt a full-blown identity crisis that’s seen fully half the conference fire at least one head coach — Florida’s fired two now — since the end of 2014.

For years the SEC justified its superiority complex largely by boasting about its depth, and for most of this century the on-field product has made good on that reputation. From 1999-2014 the league went 16 years without crowning a repeat champion, a dog-eat-dog standard that stood in contrast to the mini-dynasties that reigned over every other major conference. Winning one SEC title in the big-money era is supposed to be a rugged battle of attrition; winning two in a row is supposed to be next to impossible.

So Bama’s three-year reign in Atlanta has amounted to an existential crisis for the rest of the league all by itself, made worse by the fact that the gap only seems to be getting wider: Only four games in Alabama’s ongoing, 24-game SEC winning streak have been decided by single digits. Last year, the chasm between the Saban Death Star and everyone else was almost comical, unless you happened to be on the side of the opponent being methodically dismantled on a given Saturday. The only drama, again, was how ghastly the margins would be: 18 points against Auburn, 38 points against Florida in the SEC Championship Game, 25 points against SEC opponents on average.

Not to suggest at the end of the day that Alabama was invincible, as Clemson finally proved in the fourth quarter of the national championship game, or that this year’s team would necessarily replace another 10 outgoing draft picks without missing a beat. But of course it has, because that’s what Bama does: The Tide’s average margin of victory against conference opponents has expanded by almost a full touchdown per game, to 31.6; in four of their first five SEC wins they covered that spread with room to spare. Alabama’s ostensible peers haven’t just come up short — with a couple of exceptions, they haven’t even come close.

It’s not for nothing, though, that Alabama’s only truly close call in that streak, a come-from-behind 31-24 escape at Mississippi State, happened to coincide with Auburn’s thorough, 40-17 beatdown of Georgia, a season-making romp that, combined with Bama’s rare glimpse of vulnerability, put the Iron Bowl in play on a much more visceral level than it’s been in years.

Technically, the Tigers arrive at the culmination of the regular season with every goal still intact, up to and including the Playoff ticket that will come with an SEC title; on a more basic, gut level, the Georgia game gave them (and us) every reason to believe they’re arriving at rivalry weekend on effectively equal footing, which hasn’t been the case in quite some time. The point spread skewed heavily in Auburn’s direction after those two games, plummeting by a full touchdown, and reopened on Monday morning at Alabama -4.5, the Tide’s narrowest edge in the series according to Vegas since the 2010 game opposite Cam Newton.

Whether the game will actually play out as a classic in the vein of 2009, 2010, or 2013 is an entirely different question, one we’ll address more fully later in the week. For now, we have the big, climactic drama that’s been sorely missing in late November the past three years, in exactly the right matchup to play it to the hilt. At this point, that’s all anyone can ask.

NOTEBOOK
Around the conference.

Georgia 42, Kentucky 13: This was hardly Georgia’s most dominant turn of the season, but on the heels of the previous week’s debacle at Auburn it was exactly the kind of performance the Bulldogs needed to reset expectations. They looked like the best version of themselves over the first 10 games: Prolific on the ground, efficient through the air, merciless defensively in all phases. Everything is still in front of them, Playoff included, and as it has for most of the season UGA played like a team fully capable of reaching those goals.

It also turned out to be a fitting Sanford Stadium send-off to the most prolific rushing duo in SEC history. Nick Chubb and Sony Michel both fulfilled to the 5-star hype that preceded them in Athens, which in most circumstances would make them more likely candidates to be slogging through their rookie campaign in the NFL right now than to make it to Senior Day healthy and in good standing. And maybe they should be! If only Kentucky were so lucky: Instead, Chubb and Michel torched the Wildcats for 238 yards and five touchdowns between them on just 27 carries, the seventh time this year (!) they’ve combined for at least 150 yards rushing in 10 games vs. FBS opponents. In most of those, like Saturday, that was only as far as they got before coaches decided to ease up on the throttle in a blowout.

Credit: Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports

Chubb’s share of that output moved him within 100 yards of Kevin Faulk’s career total on the ground (4,557 yards), the conference record for a four-year back. Beyond that, Chubb is almost certain to pass Darren McFadden (4,590) into second place among all SEC rushers, behind only Herschel Walker, whose three-year total at UGA (5,259) remains well out of the reach of mere mortals.

It wasn’t obvious when Chubb chose to pass on the draft that the extra year on campus would be worth it, especially given the fate of literally every other high-profile Georgia running back of the past 25 years. But it has been, and it’s far from over.

Missouri 45, Vanderbilt 17: Vanderbilt is a verifiably bad team — the Commodores are 0-7 in the SEC — and Barry Odom isn’t about to win Coach of the Year for getting Missouri bowl-eligible in his second season. But six wins marks a clear step forward from Odom’s 4-8 debut in 2016, and given where the Tigers were a month ago it almost qualifies as a milestone. Arguably no team in America has improved as much, as fast, over the second half of the season.

True, the turnaround is due in part to the schedule: All but one of the losses in Mizzou’s 1-5 start came at the hands of SEC opponents with winning records, while every team in the Tigers’ five-game winning streak since is at least three games below .500. They’ve been beating up on bad teams with well-documented issues. But Missouri itself was a bad team with well-documented issues, one that, as of early October, seemed more likely to get its coach fired before Thanksgiving than to qualify for a bowl. At that point it was hard to see the Tigers winning a conference game. Almost overnight, Mizzou went from a team that went from getting blown out on a weekly basis — by Purdue as well as by Auburn and Georgia — to one that has consistently blown out its opposition:


(Game Score via ESPN’s Football Power Index; Percentile Performance via Bill Connelly)

As the game-by-game grades suggest, a turnaround that stark goes beyond strength of schedule. Just look at the margins: On average, the Tigers have won their last five by more points per game (35.4) than they scored in any of their five losses, period.

That’s good enough to make them a top-40 outfit this week according to both FPI (31st) and S&P+ (30th), and not far behind according to Jeff Sagarin (45th). It also gives them a chance to climb to .500 in SEC play this weekend at Arkansas, another encouraging benchmark after back-to-back last-place finishes in the East the past two years. (Missouri opened as an 11-point favorite on the road.) If Odom can convince red-hot quarterback Drew Lock to stay in school for his senior season, much higher expectations are in store.

LSU 30, Tennessee 10: The uniforms alone should have counted for something here, but the fact is unless you happened to be coaching, playing, or otherwise directly involved in it there’s no way to spin this as a significant game — even as it unfolded, most Tennessee fans online seemed vastly more interested in rumors about the Vols’ ongoing coaching search than anything going on on the field. It was certainly a weird game, though, which for two teams with nothing in particular at stake on either side is all viewers could have ask. It was weird before it even kicked off.

The wind, which bent the goalposts, scattered ponchos, sent large pieces of metal flying into the crowd, and generally served as a heavy-handed metaphor for the state of Tennessee football in 2017, was just the beginning. After an unremarkable first half (LSU led 17-10 at the break), the teams took the field for the second amid an apocalyptic downpour in Knoxville that rendered Ed Orgeron even more unintelligible than usual …

… completely foiled ESPN’s standard camera angles …

… and left the referee sounding like Charlie Brown’s teacher in a Peanuts cartoon.

The broadcast endured multiple technical difficulties; several stadium lights went black; at one point the ball itself appeared to be possessed by the spirit of Peyton Manning attempting to run a naked bootleg on the goal line.

This was not “football weather”; for about half an hour, it was “evacuate the premises” weather. Surprisingly they didn’t, and by the time the worst of it blew over the field was littered with the debris of disintegrated pompoms for the rest of the night. (That would make for a fine metaphor of the past decade of Vol football, but it’s what actually happened.) Tennessee’s offense went three-and-out on its first two possessions of the half, turned the ball over on downs on the final three, and never seriously threatened to cut into the Tigers’ lead on the way to its seventh consecutive conference loss.

Meanwhile, apropos of nothing Jon Gruden was 2,600 miles away, preparing for tonight’s Falcons-Seahawks game on Monday Night Football. Which is the job he’s held for the better part of the nine years since he last coached a football team at any level. Which I’m mentioning for no reason.

Alabama 56, Mercer 0 … Auburn 42, Louisiana-Monroe 14 … South Carolina 31, Wofford 10 … Florida 36, UAB 7: Nobody got seriously hurt, and much of the clucking from around the country over “Cupcake Saturday” is hypocritical and over the top. Is that what you wanted to hear? Good, now let’s go ahead and add that ninth conference game and forget these ever happened.

PLAYOFF REALPOLITIK
Each week, Playoff Realpolitik reorganizes the Top 10 according to each team’s chances of actually making the Playoff field in December, regardless of its ranking on a given weekend — not what should happen, but what will happen. Projections take future schedules and multiple possible scenarios into account to determine the true pecking order.

Seven teams control their own fate with two weeks to go, five of whom still have to face at least one head-to-head elimination date in order to win the SEC (Alabama, Georgia, Auburn) or ACC (Clemson, Miami). Go ahead and reserve a spot for the eventual champions of those two leagues, as well as Wisconsin and Oklahoma if the Badgers and Sooners take care of their remaining business in the Big Ten and Big 12.

Notice that I believe Miami can survive a loss to Pittsburgh this weekend (unlikely, but possible) and still face essentially a quarterfinal game vs. Clemson in the ACC Championship Game. I don’t think that’s the case for any of the others there, including Alabama and Wisconsin. (I’m not going to entertain a hypothetical Wisconsin loss vs. Minnesota, a 5-6 outfit that was just manhandled by Northwestern; for the Badgers it’s Big Ten title or bust.) In Alabama’s case, though, I do think the Crimson Tide can survive a potential loss, whether it comes in the Iron Bowl or the SEC title game, if Wisconsin or Oklahoma should happen to take an L, too, thereby freeing up a place for Bama as an at-large.

Take any speculation involving a two-loss team that’s not Auburn with a couple grains of salt. My guess here is that if it comes down to weighing the résumés of multiple 11-2 teams the committee will favor the Big 12 champion (Oklahoma or TCU) over Ohio State out of the Big Ten, mainly due to Oklahoma’s convincing head-to-head win in Columbus in September. Regardless of the loss column, I’m also going to bet that Miami can’t count on remaining ahead of the Big 12 or Big Ten champ if the Hurricanes comes up short against Clemson in the ACC title game and have to make a case as an at-large team.

The Canes do have the advantage of a lopsided head-to-head win over Notre Dame, which has the advantage of a lopsided head-to-head win over USC. But conference championships matter, and without one Miami’s going to face much longer odds than Alabama of getting the benefit of the doubt over a team that has one.

SUPERLATIVES
The best of the week…

1. Nick Chubb and Sony Michel, RB, Georgia. I hope Georgia fans apprciate how rare it is for two players as highly regarded as Chubb and Michel to arrive as part of the same recruiting class in the first place, much less for both of them to wind up panning out as bona fide, All-SEC-caliber stars in the same backfield. Both will play in the NFL a long time, but probably not long enough to see their alma mater roll out a better 1-2 punch

2. Derrick Tucker, S, Texas A&M. At kickoff on Saturday night, Tucker was a relatively obscure true freshman still finding his footing in the Aggies’ starting lineup; by Sunday, A&M sites were envisioning his future as an All-American and early entrant in the 2020 draft. That’s going a little far, but Tucker certainly broke through in a big way against Ole Miss, finishing with a team-high 14 tackles (11 solo, one for loss) and his first career interception — a go-ahead pick-six in the third quarter that put the Aggies up for good in a must-have, 31-24 win on the road. As for his pending superstardom, check back next year.

3. Benito Jones, DT, Ole Miss. On the losing side, Jones — one of the 5-star headliners of Ole Miss’ hyped 2016 recruiting class — delivered arguably the best night as a Rebel, finishing with career highs for total tackles (7), solo tackles (4) and tackles for loss (2.5) from the middle of the SEC’s most beleaguered defensive line. (The TFL number also included Jones’ first solo sack, one week after he was credited with a half-sack vs. UL-Lafayette.) As a team, it was Ole Miss’ best effort against the run all year, by a mile, and no one played a more important role.

4. McTelvin Agim, DL, Arkansas. Another 5-star sophomore on the defensive line, another career day in a losing effort. For Agim, the Razorbacks’ last-minute loss to Mississippi State also yielded career highs across the board, for total tackles (9), solo tackles (4) and TFLs (2.5), as well as a pair of forced fumbles on the Bulldogs’ first two possessions of the game. On the first, Agim abused MSU’s right tackle to record a strip sack on Nick Fitzgerald’s first downfield pass attempt, setting a tone for the rest of the afternoon; on the second, he bulled his way past the same poor RT to blow up a zone-read handoff still in progress, creating a loose ball that a teammate recovered in the end zone for the second of Arkansas’ three touchdowns on the day.

5. Dylan Moses, LB, Alabama. Yes, he was playing against Mercer. Acknowledged. Regardless of the opponent, Moses’ first career start was a revelation — in part for the eye-opening stat line (11 tackles, 4 TFLs, 1 INT), and even more so for the simple reassurance that the freshman looks fully capable of filling the most glaring void in Bama’s lineup. As massively hyped as Moses was coming out of IMG Academy, for a 19-year-old suddenly shouldering so much responsibility so early in his career he responded better than anyone could have reasonably expected.

Honorable Mention: Georgia LB Roquan Smith was his usual, ubiquitous self against Kentucky, finishing with nine tackles and a sack. .… LSU RBs Derrius Guice and Darrel Williams accounted for 206 yards from scrimmage and three touchdowns in the Tigers’ win over Tennessee. … LSU LB Devin White had a hand in 11 tackles and three TFLs against the Vols. … Mississippi State LB Montez Sweat got in on three sacks against Arkansas.… And Missouri DE Marcell Frazier kept the pressure on at Vanderbilt, finishing with two sacks and a pair of QB hurries.

Catch of the Year of the Week: Blake Bone, Kentucky.
Kentucky struggles to generate big plays, in general, and with little help from the running game against Georgia the downfield passing game was almost nonexistent: Only one of the Wildcats’ 60 snaps on offense, run or pass, resulted in a gain of at least 20 yards, and that was only by virtue of a spectacular, contortionist’s effort by Mr. Bone on a ball that was more or less thrown up for grabs.

UK got a field goal out of that and did very little of note the rest of the way, contributing to what may have been the most boring TV time slot across the dial of the entire season.

Moment of Zen of the Week: Arkansas’ Holy Roller.
All three of Arkansas’ touchdowns against Mississippi State were preceded by some bit of weirdness that had nothing to do with the proficiency of the Razorbacks’ offense. The first was aided by a wayward punt that bounced off a Mississippi State player’s head early in the game, giving Arkansas a fresh set of downs inside the MSU 40-yard line. The second was a defensive touchdown set up by a forced fumble inside the MSU 5-yard line (see above). And the third … well, the third was aided significantly by whatever exactly happened here:

Officially, that play gained 33 yards, making the Razorbacks’ longest gain of the day; two plays later they plunged in for the lead. When you’re 4-7, you have to take ’em any way you can get ’em.

Honorable Mention Zen: Jake Fromm accidentally bonked a ref in the face with the ball. … A local restaurant was forced to apologize to Tennessee fans for spreading rumors related to the Vols’ coaching search. … Ole Miss’ athletic director was forced to apologize for allowing a certain former coach to address the home crowd via JumboTron. … And Lane Kiffin, winner of seven straight at Florida Atlantic, still can’t stop himself from being Lane Kiffin.