How To Watch the SEC Football Championship Game: Time, Channel, Texas vs. Georgia Prediction, and More

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

For example, the 2024 SEC football season had its share of upsets and big wins, as resurgent teams like South Carolina, Ole Miss, and Vanderbilt racked up huge wins against the SEC’s upper class. But how did things shake out for the conference at the end of the regular season? Once again, Georgia’s heading to Atlanta. This year’s SEC Championship Game will be a regular season rematch against Texas. (Also, Alabama and Timothée Chalamet will be hanging around for some reason.)

Nevertheless, the 2024 SEC Championship Game has a lot of implications for the playoff and the SEC’s postseason odds. Georgia’s been a hot-and-cold team capable of anything this year, while Texas is looking for revenge after their 30–15 regular season loss to the Bulldogs. But most importantly? With a spread that’s less than a field goal, this game looks to be one of the best during conference championship weekend.

Will the Longhorns be able to run the dang ball? Which Georgia team shows up in Atlanta? Here’s everything you need to know about watching the 2024 SEC Football Championship Game between Texas and Georgia.

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2024 SEC Football Championship Game preview

Georgia’s been uncharacteristically rickety this season, as it’s scraped together a 10-win season by the skin of its teeth. But at the same time, the Bulldogs’ midseason win over Texas highlights their ceiling—can they reach it again?

As for Texas, the Longhorns have run through most of the SEC in their inaugural year in the conference. With one of the nation’s best playcallers in head coach Steve Sarkisian and an elite defense, will the Longhorns be able to go all the way this year?

Here are our biggest questions ahead of Georgia versus Texas in the 2024 SEC Football Championship Game.

Georgia vs. Texas by the stats

What’s up, dogs

Your eyes aren’t deceiving you (and it’s not because of Carson Beck’s NIL money)—Georgia’s been much worse on offense this season. The Bulldogs’ run game has fallen off a cliff, and their advanced efficiency stats are down across the board compared to last year.

For an example of why Georgia fans have spent more time cursing offensive coordinator Mike Bobo this year, let’s look at Carson Beck’s stats. Without former catchers Brock Bowers and Ladd McConkey, Beck’s had to work twice as hard to keep Georgia afloat, leading to a down year in multiple areas.

Horns (and difficulty) up

You play the schedule you’re given, and it’s not Texas’s fault that early-season matchups against Michigan and Oklahoma turned out to be nothingburgers. (This also applies to an SEC conference slate that featured Texas playing multiple freshman quarterbacks, as taking care of business still counts for something.)

However, Texas’s modest strength of schedule—ESPN’s FPI ranks it at 32nd—underlines how badly Texas flunked its first playoff-caliber matchup against Georgia. Outside of two third-quarter scoring drives from Texas, Georgia held the Longhorns in check the entire game, and Texas hit a season-low in offensive yardage (including a running game that averaged a whopping 1.07 yards per play).

That said, the 11–1 Longhorns did everything you’d want to see them do in the last third of the season. Texas dominated Florida, stuffed Texas A&M into a box, racked up touchdowns, and went undefeated.

Texas vs. Georgia prediction: Longhorns favored, but gotta prove it

CableTV.com doesn’t officially have a take on the sports nerd “is momentum real” debate, but if we did, it’d be hard to find a better case study than this year’s SEC Championship game. The Longhorns closed the regular season on the heels of a mostly comfortable 5–0 win streak, while Georgia got choked out by Ole Miss and needed eight overtime rounds to get past Georgia Tech last week.

Few teams are entering the postseason on as warm of a hot streak as Texas, and the Longhorns are capable of winning their rematch against a Georgia team that’s been inconsistent all year. But as their narrow odds against Texas show, it’s hard to be considered The Dude until you’ve been The Dude. On top of that, both teams are dealing with their share of starter injuries:

• Georgia: Defensive lineman Christen Miller and running back Trevor Etienne are listed as questionable.
• Texas: Offensive lineman Kelvin Banks Jr. is listed as questionable, while Quinn Ewers is expected to play through an ankle sprain.

The stakes for this year’s SEC Championship Game aren’t playoff-or-bust, as Texas and Georgia are virtual bracket locks—seeding, a bye, and a conference title are the biggest things on the line. Still, we’ll have a much better idea of if the SEC can hold off an Ohio State or Oregon national champ after Saturday’s game.

On Texas’s end, expect the Longhorns to establish the run. Against Arkansas, Kentucky, and Texas A&M, Texas leaned on its ground game with more than 40 attempts per game, and they cracked the 240-yard mark in the latter two matchups.

Coupled with Ewers’ bum ankle, Quintrevion Wisner’s emergence as a bell cow runner, and Arch Manning’s red zone package, Texas likely wants to prove that Georgia’s run game dominance last time was a fluke. (And considering Georgia’s reeling run defense has given up more than 200 yards over the past two games—including to UMass!—that’s a pretty safe bet.)

As for Georgia, they are what they are at this point if you cover up the logo: a talented but flawed squad that can’t win games off talent alone (which is a bummer for Georgia fans used to racking up trophies, but also: join the club). Carson Beck’s mostly worked through his interception yips, as he hasn’t thrown a pick since a tipped ball against Ole Miss. Beck also had a clean two-touchdown game against Tennessee’s top-20 pass defense.

But if Etienne’s out, the odds of Georgia having to make Beck play hero ball against Texas’s top-five defense rise dangerously. (Beck threw up a 0-3 touchdown-to-interception line against the Longhorns last time, so this hasn’t tended to go well.) Georgia’s shaky defense and running backs have to hold up against Texas to keep things manageable for Beck and the Georgia passing game.

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