ATHENS — Those who dared blink last week might have missed a lot, and the same could hold true with another enticing slate of SEC games.

While it’s not likely history will be made in the same fashion — five of the top seven-ranked teams in the AP Top 25 poll lost on the same day for the first time in history, including the top three ranked SEC teams — College Football Playoff spots could be on the line.

For that matter, head coaching jobs might ultimately be on the line, too.

South Carolina coach Shane Beamer finds his team in the curious position of being a betting favorite over No. 11 Tennessee, which is coming off a convincing 26-10 win over then-No. 6 Alabama last Saturday.

Beamer, in his sixth year coaching the Gamecocks, dealt with job security questions after South Carolina opened the SEC portion of its schedule with three straight losses.

The Gamecocks (3-3, 1-3 SEC) finally gave their fans something to crow about with a 38-19 upset win at Florida before their bye last week and will now look to use that extra rest to damage the Vols (6-1, 3-1) CFP hopes.

Tennessee leads the nation with 4.29 sacks per game, but South Carolina QB LaNorris Sellers is a running threat who’s hard to bring down.

Sellers’ 68.5 yards rushing per game rank second among SEC quarterbacks in the league (Auburn, Byrum Brown, 76.5).

Meanwhile in Texas Coach Steve Sarkisian has gone from four weeks at the top of the national rankings to consecutive losses against Oklahoma and Florida and the verge of playoff elimination.

“I tend not to live in the past,” said Sarkisian, who’s in his sixth year coaching the Longhorns program. “I tend not to keep going back to something … Now we’re moving forward.

“The windshield’s (big), let’s focus on what’s in front of us and not get so caught up and always starting at what happened behind us.”

Indeed, Texas (4-2, 1-2 SEC) can’t afford to take it’s collective eye off the road with Ole Miss star quarterback Trinidad Chambliss and his red-hot Rebels (5-1, 3-1) standing in the way of Sarkisian rallying his team to a playoff finish.

Ole Miss coach Pete Golding, who was promoted to replace Lane Kiffin after the former Rebels’ head coach bolted for LSU last Nov. 30, isn’t buying into the theory that Arch Manning is not a capable quarterback.

“The (lack of) consistency there that you talk about, sometimes it’s a lack of protection, sometimes it’s a drop, sometimes the defense makes a good play,” Golding said of Manning’s recent struggles.

“But a lot of it to me has been bad luck, to be honest with you.”

LSU (5-2, 2-2) and Auburn (4-2, 2-2) open the day at noon at Jordan-Hare Stadium in what figures to be an elimination game of sorts, as each team already has two losses.

The Baton Rouge species of SEC Tigers has won five of the past seven meetings, but the programs haven’t played since 2023 and both have first-year coaches.

Alabama and Kentucky are double-digit home favorites in must-win games against Texas A&M and Vanderbilt.

Here are the game times, TV channels, betting lines (per ESPN) and picks for Saturday:

LSU -7 at Auburn, (noon, ABC)

Pick: LSU 30, Auburn 22

Tennessee at South Carolina, -2.5 (3:30 p.m., ESPN)

Pick: Tennessee 19-14

Ole Miss at Texas -3.5 (7:30 p.m., ABC)

Pick: Texas 20-17

Texas A&M at Alabama -13.5 (3:30 p.m. ABC)

Pick: Alabama 31, Texas A&M 17

Vanderbilt at Kentucky -10.5 (7:30 p.m. SEC Network)

Pick: Kentucky 31, Vanderbilt 21

Last week: 4-3 straight-up; 3-4 vs. spread

Overall: 42-14 straight-up: 28-28 vs. spread