There aren't that many high-caliber games in Week 10. But those that are here will redefine the college football world for 2008.
No fewer than six conference championship contenders, and three highly-regarded national title hopefuls, will take part in four of the weekend's biggest games. One of the games is seen as something tantamount to an elimination game for the BCS championship.
So when you say that there are only four important games in the tenth week of the season -- well, yeah, in a manner of speaking.
There was also only one important war from 1939-1945.
The biggest game of the week -- again, predicting things more than two months before they actually happen -- figures to be Florida at Georgia, time and network to be determined, though it should be a shoo-in for CBS' 3:30 p.m. ET time slot on Nov. 1. Both teams are expected to be in the national title hunt, and this game should end up as a de facto SEC East championship game, assuming the Gators aren't tripped up by their former coach and the spelling-challenged Dawgs can get past their interdivisional rival on the Plains.
ABC and FSN, though, have a more complicated slate of Big XII games to fight over. An old rivalry with conference championship implications is renewed when Nebraska goes to Oklahoma. To the south, the Longhorns tries to fight off an in-state rival as Texas visits Texas Tech. The permutations of where the Sooners, Longhorns and Red Raiders could be in the standings are too many to go into at this point, but both games should still be significant in deciding who will represent the South in the championship bout. And if, as some expect, the Huskers are in the race, the week could be almost apocalyptic for the conference standings.
But those of us on the East Coast probably won't see whichever of those games ends up on ABC. Instead, we'll be, ahem, "treated" to Clemson at Boston College, a game that likely to have relevance on the all-important battle for the ACC crown.
At least we can watch the WORLD'S LARGEST COCKTAIL PARTY. And, yes, that's what it will always be called.