(RNN) - Division races are tightening up and a few important games dot the SEC landscape, but this week might be one of the last opportunities for TV football addicts to participate in real life before things get extreme.
All times Eastern:
LSU at Texas A&M, Noon, ESPN
Last week, LSU was like the apparently deceased serial killer in the midnight horror film: lying there motionless, not breathing, moonlight glinting off the hockey mask when BOOM!
His eyes fly open, he sits bolt upright, swings his machete and whoosh! South Carolina's head goes, thunk, thunk, thunk down the scary hallway.
Now, the Tigers have crawled back into the BCS hunt, ranked No. 6 in the nation, and they're creeping up the darkened stairway in a spooky old College Station mansion and behind the squeaky door there's… AAAH! Johnny Football! Wearing a horizontally striped No. 2 Texas A&M jersey, face all gnarly and burn-scarred and he's cackling as he waves his razor-blade fingers. Cue the Psycho music:
Scree, Scree, Scree!
All extended metaphors aside, this may be the best game ever to kick off before lunch.
Auburn at Vanderbilt, Noon, SEC Network
Juniors on this Auburn team who celebrated a national championship two years ago will get off the bus in Nashville as a 7-point underdog to Vanderbilt.
I have no explanation, but life's crazy, isn't it?
Vanderbilt has just two wins and Auburn has one this season, but Vanderbilt looked better getting hammered by Florida last week than Auburn did falling apart against Ole Miss.
Auburn is a solid 117th in the nation in scoring, and the Tigers are the worst fourth-quarter team in the nation unless there's one that hasn't scored at all - they have managed a field goal while giving up 62 points in the fourth period. Vanderbilt is 109th in scoring and… sorry, I don't want to talk about it anymore.
Don't watch this game. Go to the mall. Get some ice cream, buy sneakers, go to the pet store and look at the puppies. Happy things are at the mall. This game is a sad thing.
South Carolina at Florida 3:30 p.m., CBS
After last week's hard-fought loss at Baton Rouge, South Carolina can keep hope alive by cruising into Gainesville and clocking the high-ranked Gators. They could also throw the SEC East race into a who-beat-who daisy chain of mind-boggling possibilities regarding which team might yet fight its way to a gore-spattered SEC Championship Game rendezvous with the spinning circle saw that is Alabama (unless the Tide loses to LSU, or Mississippi State or somebody).
USC and the Gators are lot alike if you think about it. Good defense, good running game, solid quarterbacks, a kicking game that'll get you there. And South Carolina is a 3-point underdog, just like last week against LSU.
You'll probably want to come back from the mall in time to watch this one.
Georgia Bulldogs at Kentucky Wildcats 7 p.m., FSN
The bipolar Bulldogs face the woeful Wildcats.
Back to the mall, and step on it, because you will also want to ignore:
Alabama at Tennessee 7 p.m., ESPN
The once-fevered hatred that flowed between Alabama and Tennessee is but a memory. Here's the back story for the uninformed youth of today.
A long time ago, Tennessee coach Phil Fulmer turned Alabama in for cheating and Alabama got on probation. This made Alabama fans very mad because their team was awful for a long span of misery.
Alabama fans screamed in the streets, overturned burning cars and swore in the general direction of Tennessee every time the Crimson Tide lost, which was often. Alabama lost to Tennessee every year for 1,000 years and generations of Bama fans wept, sacrificed goats to the dark gods and prayed that one day the bitter cup would pass.
Then Alabama hired Nick Saban and became an indomitable force of irrefutable omnipotence. Fulmer got fired.
So long story short, here we are in the present and it's like, the brothers are lounging around the frat house in Tuscaloosa, and one says, "We play Tennessee this week, right?" And the other says, "Let me check," and he does something with his iPhone and goes, "Yeah, Tennessee it is." So the first one goes, "OK, I hope we win." And the other guy responds, "Want to order a pizza?"
Last week at Mississippi State, Tennessee did what it does, which is hang around for a while then lose. And Alabama did what it does to Missouri, which is destroy everything in its path and leave behind smoking ruins and cries of lamentation.
More of the same is likely.
Middle Tennessee at Mississippi State, 7 p.m., ESPN2
Stay at the mall until it closes, then remain in the parking lot until the police make you leave, then drive around a while just to make sure you don't get home in time to see this one.
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