Last season, the SEC East wasn’t decided until the final play of Florida’s last regular-season conference game.

Fans of three teams sat on the edge of their seats and held their breath as LSU was knocking on the door to tie the game 16-16 and set up a likely victory with an extra point. Instead, the Gators stuffed Tigers RB Derrius Guice at the goal line and the SEC East was clinched. Florida had secured its spot in Atlanta, as Tennessee fans could not believe that after snapping the streak in September, the Volunteers still did not win the division.

UF’s division-clinching win last season came in Week 12. The Gators are one of four teams in the division – joined by Georgia, Kentucky and South Carolina – that schedules an in-state ACC rival to end the regular season. If the division depends on a conference win or loss involving Tennessee, Vanderbilt or Missouri, it could be decided on the final weekend.

What about this season? Let’s take a look.

Cheers to locking it up in October

Ever since the 2016 season came to a close, Georgia has been the favorite to win the East in 2017. While Florida and Tennessee both lost a number of key contributors, the Bulldogs return top running backs Nick Chubb and Sony Michel as well as starting quarterback Jacob Eason.

It’s not just media members who see UGA likely going to Atlanta this December. When handicappers Odds Shark unveiled SEC Championship odds in April, Georgia had the best chance of any team from the division. On ESPN’s Football Power Index, Georgia is the top SEC East team with a projected 8.4 wins this season. Right behind UGA are rivals Florida and Tennessee at 7.9 wins.

If ESPN’s FPI projections hold, Georgia and Florida will enter their annual showdown in Jacksonville tied atop the division with one conference loss each. In that scenario, the victor at The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party would be in the driver’s seat to go to Atlanta, but the division would not necessarily be clinched.

The key to making the Cocktail Party the division-deciding game is both teams dominating their conference schedules in September and October, which includes meetings with Tennessee. If the Vols were to fall to both Georgia and Florida, they’d be all but eliminated. The FPI, however, projects UT as winning one of those big SEC East rivalry games.

Not so fast: Why we’ll likely be waiting until November

In terms of preseason power rankings and Vegas odds, there are pretty clear consensuses of top three teams in the East (Georgia, Florida and Tennessee) and the West (Alabama, Auburn and LSU). What makes the Atlanta race particularly interesting is that the top three are each other’s cross-division permanent rival. This year, Tennessee and LSU will also meet as each other’s cross-division rotational opponent. ESPN’s FPI indicates that game potentially decides the East.

Looking at the FPI for the division’s top three, Georgia’s chance of winning is below 50 percent in two conference games: at Tennessee on Sept. 30 and at Auburn on Nov. 11. Florida’s projected conference losses are against LSU on Oct. 7 and Georgia on Oct. 28. Tennessee is the underdog against Florida on Sept. 16, Alabama on Oct. 21 and LSU on Nov. 18.

If the FPI’s projections all play out based on win probability, Georgia, Florida and Tennessee will all enter Week 12 with two conference losses. They will be knotted up in a three-way tie because each will have one loss to an SEC East team and a loss to their SEC West permanent rival.

The three-way tie falls apart if LSU beats Tennessee on Nov. 18 as the FPI projects (59.5 percent chance). If the Vols drop to three losses, the tie at the top is then between Georgia and Florida. With the head-to-head tiebreaker from the Cocktail Party, UGA would control its own destiny against Kentucky. FPI gives the Bulldogs a 79 percent chance of beating the Wildcats on Nov. 18.

What about the other four?

If Kentucky, South Carolina, Missouri or Vanderbilt pull a couple upsets, the SEC East would be even more likely to go down to the wire again. Throughout the offseason, all four will likely be discussed as potential sleepers. In 2015, Kentucky and Vanderbilt both took division champ Florida down to the wire. Missouri has won the SEC East title more recently than every other division team besides UF.

The media preseason favorite has not done well in making it to Atlanta the past few years, but there’s a reason the above discussion centered around Georgia, Florida and Tennessee. After those three all hover around the eight-win mark on the FPI, the next SEC East team to check in is South Carolina at 6.1 projected wins.

There’s always a chance the SEC East goes off script, but all signs point to the division being decided in November by the Georgia-Auburn and Tennessee-LSU games.