For all the chaos currently wreaking havoc on the rest of college football, despite all the questions about who will make it to the College Football Playoff and who will rage on the sidelines, the SEC Championship appears to be fairly stable. After the Crab Pot that was the SEC regular season, it’s a little surprising that the top two teams at the start of the season also end up in the top two at the end.

When Georgia and Texas square off at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta on Saturday (where the Longhorns are a 3-point favorite), there won’t be the drama that comes with, say, the Mountain West, ACC or Big 12 championships , where the winner is included in the CFP field and the loser is eliminated. (Potentially out, in the case of the ACC.)

Both Georgia and Texas are almost certainly already in action, so this game doesn’t necessarily have the ultimate incentive to wait for life or death. (We say “almost certainly” because you can never fully understand the CFP mindset…more on that in a moment.) But there’s still a lot to play for, starting with the first-round bye.

The top four conference championship winners earn direct entry to the quarterfinals, and unlike the NFL, this isn’t just an extra week off. Thanks to the holidays, the winner of Saturday’s SEC Championship won’t play again until New Year’s Day in the Sugar Bowl. That’s three and a half weeks of rest and preparation, which is invaluable at this time of year.

And let’s not forget bragging rights; Being able to declare yourself an SEC champion is a special seal of approval.

“An SEC title is a major milestone in your season,” Georgia head coach Kirby Smart said earlier this week. “It also gives you a bye and gives you the opportunity to rest and recover while others are playing against formidable, tough opponents. It removes you from it. You may be playing for a chance to rest.”

The loser of the game would advance to a first round home game on the weekend of December 20-21. Texas with one loss would have a better claim to hosting a first-round game in Austin than a three-loss Georgia would have to hosting one in Athens. Would the committee penalize Georgia for playing an extra game while Ohio State, Tennessee and Indiana sat at home and watched? Who knows?

One more reason to want the first-round bye: It’s still very uncertain how much the first-round game on campus will be worth. Home advantage is not a guarantee; Georgia beat Texas in Austin, and then the Dawgs almost lost to Georgia Tech in Athens.

Everyone assumes that these first-round games will be raucous festivals filled with students and graduates playing familiar fight songs in familiar surroundings. But a college football Saturday in September is a completely different beast than a college football Friday night in late December. What will the weather be like? How many alumni and out-of-town students will make the trip back to campus three or four days before Christmas? Can students stay in their halls of residence? How exactly is this all supposed to work?

This is all new territory here, but it all comes down to the fact that, while hosting a game is far better than going on tour in December, it’s not a guaranteed advantage. One more reason to wish for a bye in the first round. You can’t lose if you don’t play.

The last time these two schools met in October, No. 5 Georgia beat No. 1 Texas in a not-so-close 30-15 game. Since then, Georgia has lost to Ole Miss and survived eight overtimes against Georgia Tech, while Texas has won five straight, including tougher-than-expected matchups against Vanderbilt and Arkansas. It’s safe to say that none of these teams are quite as good as predicted at the start of the season. But you don’t reach the SEC Championship by luck. Considering how the last few weeks have unfolded for each school, there is no outcome to this game that would be a major surprise.

If the Dawgs and Longhorns battle into the fourth quarter as expected, the seeds will take care of themselves. The winner will almost certainly be seeded second and the loser will be seeded fifth (depending on the Big Ten outcome and various other factors). But what happens if there is a breakdown? How far would both teams fall?

Alabama, which suffered three defeats, ranks at the bottom of the rankings as a stopgap; Neither a two-loss Texas nor a three-loss Georgia that reached the SEC title game should fall behind the Tide. But a ninth place finish or lower is not out of the question. That would be a hard fall, from a possible bye to an away game in Knoxville or Columbus. But it is possible. The safest way to avoid a CFP debate is to eliminate any reason for discussion.

“I hope, especially in the case of the Southeastern Conference, that no one is penalized for playing in this game,” Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian said. “There is a bit of a war of attrition in our conference. I always kind of laugh at people. “Oh yeah, we beat an SEC team this year.” But you didn’t play it for eight weeks. You didn’t have to play in some of those environments that people have to play in week in and week out.”

It’s not often that the SEC plays in the ACC’s opening schedule, but that’s definitely the case in Saturday’s conference championship. Georgia vs. Texas will be a tough war worth watching as we wait to see what unfolds in the ACC Championship… and then the CFP debates really begin.