Georgia football vs Auburn: The rivalry returns to its roots this Saturday

College football’s most important rivalry

That all pales in comparison to this season. Atlanta crowned SIAA Champions in the early days of college football in the deep south, Southern Conference Champions in the 1920’s, and SEC Champions for the last three decades. And Atlanta helped crown a National Champion last season.

But this January, Atlanta is hosting the National Championship Game. This is the culmination of Atlanta’s ascension to the top of not only college football in the deep south, but as the mecca of college football in the United States.

It is fitting that of all the teams who could play in the SEC Championship Game this season. Of all the teams who could be poised to win a National Championship Game played in Atlanta after 12 weeks. It’s Georgia and Auburn

Lets put the bitterness with Auburn aside for one moment and just think about how monumental this is that the two schools who introduced college football to the city 125 years ago, will meet in Atlanta for the first time since 1914 this Saturday to decide the SEC Championship.

The winner of said game will go on to have a chance to play in the National Championship Game in Atlanta in January. While the loser will most likely return to Atlanta on New Year’s Day in the Peach Bowl.

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For one week, Georgia versus Auburn isn’t just the “Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry.” It is college football’s best, most historic and most important rivalry. There is no way that Charles Herty and George Petrie could have predicted how the sport would grow at both their respective institutions and the city of Atlanta.

But they started something on that cold afternoon in January of 1892 that would go on to define this part of the country. If College Football is like a religion in the deep south, then Herty and Petrie are its first prophets and Piedmont Park was its first church.