ATHENS — Georgia knows it has its hands full against No. 10 Texas this week. The Longhorns are more than capable of giving Georgia a difficult time.

Kirby Smart expects as much.

“They’re very disruptive, they create turnovers, aggressive,” Smart said. “They’ve got good players. I mean, at the end of the day they’ve got big, physical, good players on the line of scrimmage, which allows you to stop the run.”

Smart isn’t all that worried about where Georgia sits in the latest College Football Playoff rankings. His players aren’t either, with Georgia sitting at No. 5 once again.

“I mean, you can take a look at them, but just kind of focus on the game ahead of you,” Freeling said. “Like, the rankings are rankings, but I don’t really concern myself much with them.”

But given the movement behind Georgia in the recent College Football Playoff rankings, Georgia has another Texas team to monitor.

That would be the Texas Tech Red Raiders, who moved up to No. 6 after their win over now No. 12 BYU.

Texas Tech is 9-1 on the season with the lone loss coming on the road at Arizona State in a game in which its starting quarterback, Behren Morton, did not play. The Red Raiders already have wins over the No. 12 BYU and No. 13 Utah.

Georgia does have a better win, No. 7 Ole Miss, and a better loss, to No. 4, Alabama. What Georgia does not have in comparison to Texas Tech is a better path to its conference championship game, and thus another data point for the committee to consider.

If Texas Tech just wins its final two league games against Houston and West Virginia, Texas Tech will play for the Big 12 championship. Georgia does not have the same luxury, even if it wraps up SEC play with a win this week against the Longhorns.

To get to the SEC championship game, Georgia would need one of Alabama or Texas A&M to lose one of their remaining SEC games. And even in the event of an Alabama loss, it’s not guaranteed that Georgia would get to go to Atlanta because of various tiebreakers.

Point being, Georgia needs help in a way Texas Tech doesn’t. Which could lead to the Red Raiders ultimately jumping Georgia as they did to Ole Miss this week.

We know in the past that the College Football Playoff committee has said they value conference championships as a separator in rankings. It’s easy to envision a world where Georgia manages to stay ahead of Texas Tech through the end of the regular season, especially if Georgia beats No. 10 Texas and No. 16 Georgia Tech.

But the extra data point afforded via the conference championship game would give the Red Raiders a very real case to jump not just Georgia but also the potential loser of the SEC championship game. Say Alabama falls to Texas A&M and goes into the College Football Playoff with an 11-2 mark. There’s a world where the Crimson Tide, now No. 4, would fall to No. 5.

One of the potential consequences of Texas Tech jumping Georgia would be a possible first-round playoff game. As it stands now, Georgia would face USF, as the Bulls are the highest-seeded Group of Five conference champion.

But if Georgia were to get dropped down to the No. 6 seed, by way of Texas Tech jumping them, the Bulldogs would instead get a much more game Miami team. The Hurricanes are currently the highest-ranked ACC team in the rankings. They’re also quarterbacked by former Bulldog Carson Beck.

ESPN’s Greg McElroy wasn’t all that surprised to see Texas Tech vault over Ole Miss in the rankings. The ESPN commentator, who has called multiple Georgia games this season, thought there was a case to be made for Texas Tech jumping Georgia this week.

While that didn’t happen, it’s not hard to see that being the case when the dust settles. Which would give Georgia a very different path to the College Football Playoff.