Week 8 preview: Heisman contenders, Big 12 title race, key conference matchups and more

The 3rd Saturday successful October delivers a batch of bully things successful assemblage football, and not conscionable Tennessee-Alabama, arsenic the Vols effort to interruption their Tuscaloosa curse and triumph determination for the archetypal clip since 2003.

The SEC figures to predominate the spotlight, arsenic it often does, arsenic Ole Miss and Georgia tangle betwixt the hedges. Ole Miss manager Lane Kiffin took a changeable astatine Kirby Smart's waistline this week, giving the Georgia manager and his squad adjacent much substance to avenge past season's nonaccomplishment successful Oxford. Diego Pavia and Vanderbilt person had 2 weeks to stew implicit the Alabama loss, and present invited offense-challenged LSU to Nashville.

There is besides non-SEC enactment to monitor, including the USC-Notre Dame rivalry, which hopefully volition widen agelong beyond Saturday, and the Holy War, featuring No. 15 BYU and No. 23 Utah. There are besides sneaky-good matchups specified arsenic undefeated Georgia Tech visiting a surging Duke team.

Here's a look astatine what's connected pat successful Week 8. -- Adam Rittenberg

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Heisman contenders | Big 12 rubric race
Baylor-TCU rivalry | Key matchups
Quotes of the Week

Midseason Heisman Trophy contenders

1. Ty Simpson, QB, Alabama: You cognize it's a chaotic Heisman contention erstwhile a backmost who mislaid his archetypal vocation commencement to a now-floundering Florida State squad sits atop the list. But Simpson and the Tide person bounced backmost nicely from their struggles successful Tallahassee. Simpson is completing 70.9% of his passes for 1,678 yards with 16 touchdowns and lone 1 interception. He's 1 of lone 4 FBS quarterbacks to grounds aggregate passing touchdowns successful each crippled helium has played, and has 200 o...