Tennessee vs. Ole Miss would have been a great matchup last year or the year before that. It would have been a great matchup any year that Peyton Mannning's brother, Eli, was the Ole Miss QB.

How much difference could Eli make?

About five and a half hours and one network.

With Eli quarterbacking the Rebels, this is a 3:30 p.m. game on CBS. Without him, it's 9 p.m. on ESPN2.

Tennessee 42, Ole Miss 23: The game starts so late, I'm working on my column ahead of time. For inspiration, I spent two hours reading two books by John Grisham and two more hours reading two pages of William Faulkner.

Auburn 27, Arkansas 17: Every ranked team in the SEC except Auburn has had a bad day. And when you're due for a bad day, Arkansas is probably the last underdog you want to see.

The Razorbacks outplayed Texas before losing by two points. They sleep-walked through most of the first three quarters against Florida, then threatened to win the game in the fourth.

If you're looking for an upset, the Razorbacks are the right team at the right time at the wrong place. They might could pull it off in Fayetteville, but not Auburn.

Southern Mississippi 23, Alabama 17: The Tide's convincing victory over Kentucky last week enabled it to move past idle Troy into third place in the Alabama state poll.

Can it handle success?

Absolutely not.

Predicted Alabama state poll after this weekend: 1. Auburn, 2. Alabama-Birmingham, 3. Troy, 4. Alabama.

Georgia 38, Vanderbilt 10: This is one of the Commodores' most versatile teams. You don't know how it's going to lose.

Vanderbilt started slowly in losing to South Carolina by 25 points, lost in overtime to Ole Miss, rallied in the final minutes but came up three points short against Navy, and blew an 18-point lead in losing to Rutgers last week.

It's due for a more conventional loss.

South Carolina 27, Kentucky 13: Since coaches are renowned copycats, look for Kentucky's Rich Brooks to emulate the strategy of Ole Miss' David Cutcliffe against the Gamecocks and rotate three quarterbacks.

Unfortunately, one of those quarterbacks won't be Tim Couch, or even Ethan Flatt.

Top 25: Southern Cal 31, Arizona State 27; Oklahoma 41, Kansas State 23; Purdue 23, Wisconsin 20; Virginia 27, Florida State 24; Cal 31, UCLA 27; Utah 45, North Carolina 31; Oklahoma State 34, Texas A&M 30; Michigan 37, Illinois 22; Minnesota 31, Michigan State 24; Texas 38, Missouri 27; Boise State 45, Tulsa 20; Iowa 23, Ohio State 20.

Record: 107-17 (.863) overall, 71-53 (.573) against the spread.

John Adams may be reached at 865-342-6284 or adamsj@knews.com.