College football Week 9 – A guide to the biggest games

Week 9 of the college football season has begun, and multiple teams with an inside track to the playoff have big tests.

Tennessee survived its biggest challenge so far, outlasting Alabama 52-49 in Knoxville. The Volunteers will now host a Kentucky team coming off a bye that already has shown a propensity to knock off ranked opponents.

Sticking with the SEC East, Georgia and Florida will travel to Jacksonville to partake in an annual rivalry game that is still in search of its own name. Unfortunately for the Gators, they enter the matchup as more than three-touchdown underdogs, but anything is possible in Jacksonville.

Farther north, Michigan will host bitter rival Michigan State in a contest that always seems to bring fireworks, while Ohio State will travel to Penn State for the Buckeyes’ most important game to date. Ohio State has won five straight against the Nittany Lions and rolls into Happy Valley 7-0.

Oklahoma State looks to build off the momentum of a comeback win at home against Texas with an away game versus Kansas State, and out west, Oregon travels to Cal after a statement victory against UCLA in Eugene.

College football’s last weekend in October is here, and these are the biggest storylines this week.

No. 19 Kentucky at No. 3 Tennessee (Saturday, 7 p.m. ET, ESPN/ESPN app)

A few things have changed for Tennessee (actually a lot) since the Vols last faced Kentucky. Their 45-42 win over the No. 18-ranked Wildcats last season in Lexington snapped an 11-game losing streak against nationally ranked foes. Before that contest, which featured 1,073 yards of total offense, Tennessee’s last such victory came back in 2018 with a 24-7 win over No. 11 Kentucky.

That’s the way it’s been for the Wildcats in this series. They’ve lost 34 of the past 37 meetings, although Mark Stoops has two of those three wins in the past five years.

Stoops has built Kentucky’s program from the ground up with a pair of 10-win seasons in the past four years. Josh Heupel,…