This Saturday afternoon in College Station, Texas A&M forgot how to play football and then remembered again. The Aggies were down 30-3 at halftime to South Carolina. They were cooked. But then Marcel Reed threw for a career-high 439 yards, the offense woke up, and Texas A&M pulled off the largest comeback in school history. It was a 31-30 victory that’ll be talked about for decades. 

The win kept the Aggies’ perfect record intact at 10-0, but it also triggered something even more chaotic. The SEC Championship Game race is officially wide open, with no team able to clinch a spot in Atlanta until the final weekend of play. 

As SEC communications director Chuck Dunlap put it in a post-game tweet: “With the Texas A&M victory over South Carolina, no one can clinch a spot in the SEC Championship Game until the final weekend of games Nov. 28 & Nov. 29.” Buckle up, because this thing’s going down to the rivalry week. Here are all the scenarios that may transpire moving forward for each team.

Texas A&M Aggies

The Aggies control their destiny in the simplest way possible: win and all is well. Texas A&M will close the regular season with a showdown against archrival Texas Longhorns. This matchup can also double as a de facto SEC Championship Game elimination round.

If the Aggies beat the Longhorns on November 29th, Mike Elko’s squad punches its ticket to Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. 

But if the Aggies stumble against Texas, they’ll need serious help to reach Atlanta. They’d be hoping on Ole Miss losing one of its final two games against Florida or Mississippi State, Georgia taking down Texas, and Auburn pulling off an upset over Alabama in the Iron Bowl. 

In other words, Texas A&M’s late-season collapse scenario requires the stars to align. the football gods to smile, and about three different fanbases to be rooting for them at once.​

Alabama Crimson Tide

Alabama’s path is equally precarious despite sitting at 8-1 with two games remaining. The Crimson Tide needs to beat Oklahoma and Auburn to guarantee its spot in Atlanta. This is straightforward enough on paper but terrifying in execution. 

If Kalen DeBoer’s team drops one of those games, things get complicated fast. Lose to Oklahoma but beat Auburn? Alabama needs Texas to lose to either Georgia or Texas A&M, and they’d advance based on head-to-head tiebreakers over Georgia and common opponent records better than Ole Miss. 

Beat Oklahoma but lose to Auburn? They’re relying entirely on Georgia beating Texas, which would give the Bulldogs and Crimson Tide identical 7-1 conference records with Alabama getting the nod based on their September win over Georgia in Tuscaloosa. And if Alabama loses both? They’re likely looking at a 9-3 record and watching the playoff selection show from home. This would be a nightmare scenario for a program that expects to compete for championships every single season.​

Georgia Bulldogs

Georgia sits in perhaps the strangest position of any contender. They’ve already lost once in conference play. Their lone SEC game remaining is Saturday’s showdown with Texas. And their path to Atlanta requires borderline divine intervention. 

The Bulldogs need to beat Texas and then hope that either Alabama collapses completely by losing both Oklahoma and Auburn, or that Texas A&M splits its final two games with South Carolina (already happened, didn’t happen) and Texas. 

Even if Georgia wins out and finishes 7-1 in SEC play, they’re likely headed for the No. 5 seed in the playoff rather than the championship game, still a favorable position with wins over Charlotte and Georgia Tech, but a far cry from the Atlanta stage they’re accustomed to. 

Texas Longhorns

Texas faces a similar tightrope walk: beat Georgia, Arkansas, and Texas A&M, and they need Oklahoma to win out while Ole Miss drops a game somewhere. Lose to Georgia? They’re done, out of the championship race entirely and hoping a 9-3 record with a win over Texas A&M is enough to sneak into the playoff as the last at-large bid.​

Ole Miss Rebels

Ole Miss needs Alabama to win out and Texas to run the table while the Rebels take care of business against Florida and Mississippi State. It will create a four-team logjam at 7-1 that breaks in their favor.

The SEC Championship Game is set for December 6th at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. But figuring out who’s actually playing in it will require a calculator, a whiteboard, and possibly a theology degree to understand which higher power is smiling on which fanbase.