It began on February 20, 1892 at Piedmont Park in Atlanta. Students from Georgia and Auburn clashed on the gridiron and started something very special. Kickoff is set for 3:30 Eastern/2:30 Central Saturday afternoon at Jordan-Hare Stadium, the Bulldogs and Tigers meet for the 124th time in the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry.

Georgia leads the series 59-56-8, and the Bulldogs have won 11 of the last 14 meetings, most notably the 2017 Southeastern Conference Championship Game. That was a rematch. Auburn rolled past Georgia 40-17 in the regular-season meeting, the most recent matchup on the Plains.

Once again, there are huge stakes for these ancient rivals.

Coming off a 27-0 victory over Missouri, the Bulldogs third shutout of the season, Georgia sits at 8-1 and 5-1 in the SEC. A win over the Tigers would clinch a berth for the Bulldogs in the SEC Championship Game for a third straight season. The last program to make it to the SEC Championship Game out of the East Division three times in a row was Florida, which went to the first five under Steve Spurrier’s watch from 1992-1996.

Facing one of the most difficult schedules in the country, Auburn is 7-2, losing only at Florida and LSU, 4-2 in the league. The Tigers are coming in off an open date, the third straight Georgia opponent, and fifth of the last six, that was off the week before playing the Bulldogs.

Georgia meanwhile is in the midst of a brutal November stretch, arguably the toughest in all of college football. For decades, the schedule favored Auburn, as the Bulldogs for a majority of the second half of the 20th century would play the Tigers the week after facing Florida in Jacksonville. With the evolution of schedules, Georgia has caught Auburn in some good scheduling spots, at the end of tough stretches. So now the Tigers, with the full two weeks, have their sights squarely on the Bulldogs. While a berth in the SEC Championship Game is unlikely, the Tigers, with Georgia, and then in two weeks Alabama, have the opportunity to put together a great season, while delivering daggers to their two biggest rivals.

As always, there are a lot of Peach State natives playing for Auburn, and as intense as the rivalry is on the field, the recruiting battles between these two always have been fierce.

There is pride, passion, recruiting and major bowl stakes, and, for Georgia, the chance to clinch a spot in the league title tilt and keep the dream alive for at least another week.