College football Rivalry Week - Texas-Texas A&M, Bubble teams on alert - ESPN

The 2024 college football season has been a feast of upsets, plot twists and power struggles. Now we reach the main course: a Rivalry Week that gives us all of the reliable flavors — traditional holiday games, conference title stakes — plus some new notes. The jockeying for potential at-large bids in the expanded, 12-team College Football Playoff has been a welcome addition, as has the increased importance of conference titles themselves.

We've got all the usual huge games — the Iron Bowl, The Game, the Egg Bowl, Farmageddon, you name it — but the stakes are higher than ever. Here's everything you need to follow for a weekend like no other.

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Aggieland Showdown | Playing out?
Playing in? | Big 12 questions
FCS lookahead | Week 14 playlist
Small school showcases

We have three three-loss SEC teams — No. 13 Alabama, No. 14 Ole Miss, No. 15 South Carolina — hovering on the outskirts of the CFP race, waiting to take advantage of another contender's slip-up. Another, however, has a chance to play itself into the playoff field automatically. If Texas A&M upsets Texas on Saturday night, in the return of this legendary rivalry game, the Aggies will steal the Longhorns' spot in the SEC championship and place themselves one win from an automatic bid.

No. 3 Texas Longhorns at No. 20 Texas A&M Aggies (Saturday, 7:30 p.m., ABC)

A&M's loss to Auburn last week was a negative but accurate depiction of the Aggies in 2024. They were undone early by big plays — a 63-yard TD pass, then a 60-yard pass that set up another TD — then overcame a 21-0 deficit with the dual-threat capabilities of quarterback Marcel Reed and the type of second-half surge that beat LSU.

A&M wins games by avoiding and creating negative plays and winning