BATON ROUGE — By midafternoon today one of two things will happen.

Either No. 8 Tennessee will declare itself all in for the Southeastern Conference championship race and maybe beyond, or No. 25 LSU will show that its rebuild is ahead of schedule under first-year head coach Brian Kelly.

Regardless, something interesting or at least statement-worthy figures to happen along the way.

For two teams that seldom play each other, it’s been a notable, sometimes screwy series.

Forget the last time they played in Tiger Stadium, the 2010 totally bizarre ending when Tennessee’s 13 men on the field on what would have been the last play allowed LSU an untimed down for a 1-yard touchdown and a 16-14 victory.

The last meeting, 2017 in Knoxville, featured a torrential downpour that continued into the second-half kickoff, when the Vols’ returners couldn’t locate the ball amidst the monsoon. Pinned at their own 3-yard line, the Vols made no headway against the downpour. Right after the punt, the rains subsided and LSU got inviting field position and scored to take command for a 30-10 win.

In 2000, LSU’s 38-31 OT victory over the No. 11 Vols was Nick Saban’s first signature win.

A year later, despite forced to go to backup quarterback Matt Mauck, LSU won its first SEC championship game with a 31-10 upset that likely kept the Vols from reaching the Bowl Championship Series title game.

Same thing in 2007, when backup quarterback Ryan Perrilloux got the Tigers into the BCS with a 21-14 win in the SEC title game.

It hasn’t all gone the Tigers’ way. In 2005, in a game moved from Saturday to Monday night after Hurricane Rita hit Lake Charles, Tennessee overcame a 20-point halftime deficit to beat the Tigers 30-27 in OT.

Or go all the way back to 1959, a week after Billy Cannon’s iconic 89-yard punt return beat Ole Miss. A week later in Knoxville the Vols upset the No.1-ranked Tigers 14-13 and broke their 19-game winning streak by stopping Cannon on a 2-point attempt. Cannon went to his grave insisting he made the end zone.

That’s the kind of mischief Kelly is getting into with his first day game — morning, actually — in Tiger Stadium.

On paper it looks petty simple.

Led by quarterback Hendon Hooker, who’s starting to get into the Heisman Trophy conversation, Tennessee has college football’s top-ranked offense at 559 yards per game. It’s the typical hurry-up style that can wear down defenses while taking yardage in big gulps.

It can also limit what defenses can do, especially an improving LSU defense that likes to disguise it’s intentions pre-snap.

It’s a trade-off, though, Kelly said.

“They can’t do a lot of things either,” he said. “There’s not a lot of motion, there’s not a lot of changing formations. It allows you a pretty clean look at what you’re getting.

“You can’t do a lot defensively, but what you can do is get your cleats in the ground, line up, play fast, play free and play physical.”