2024 SEC football schedule release likely in December, per source

Photo: Gary Cosby Jr. via Imagn Content Services, LLC

The 2024 SEC football schedule has not yet been released, and it appears that college football fans will have to wait until the end of the regular-season to get their fix.

According to a source with knowledge of the plan who confirmed it to FBSchedules.com, the 2024 SEC football schedule will likely be released between the end of the 2023 regular-season and the start of bowl season. It obviously would not be released on Selection Day (Dec. 3), so that would put the schedule release somewhere between Monday, Dec. 4 and Friday, Dec. 15.

That’s about three months later than the SEC has released the schedule the past two seasons, but there are extenuating circumstances. The 2024 SEC football schedule will be the first to feature 16 teams following the addition of the Oklahoma Sooners and Texas Longhorns to the conference.

Moreover, 11 other Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) teams are changing conferences in 2024, and 10 of those are departing the Pac-12. That could force a change on some non-conference schedules and it will also leave Oregon State and Washington State as a two-team conference and both will have to fill out a 12-game schedule somehow.

Additionally, the Kennesaw State Owls are moving up to the FBS from the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) next season.

Back in June, the SEC revealed the opponents and locations for all 16 teams in 2024, plus additional scheduling details.

For the 2024 season, SEC teams will play an eight-game conference schedule with four non-conference opponents. One of those four non-conference opponents is required to be from the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 or Pac-12 or be a major independent (i.e. Notre Dame).

Additionally, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey stated that the 2024 slate will be a “…one-year schedule.” That means the opponents and rotations will likely change for 2025 and beyond.

The SEC will also eliminate the divisional standings beginning in 2024 and place the top two teams in the standings into the SEC Championship Game. Under the new division-less format, each school will play every other school a minimum of two times in a four-year period.

Below is more info on the 2024 SEC football schedule format from the conference release, followed by each teams 2024 opponents:

The slate of conference home and away designations in 2024 was built with the provision that no school will travel to the same location to which it traveled in 2023.
The 2024 SEC opponents were determined based on two primary factors: traditional opponents and balance of schedule strength.
Balance of schedule strength was based on each school’s conference winning percentage since the last expansion of the SEC in 2012. The winning percentages for the performance of Oklahoma and Texas in the Big 12 since 2012 were included in determining 16 positions ranked by winning percentage.
Each school’s schedule in 2024 will include four opponents – two home and two away — whose winning percentage ranked among the top eight conference winning percentages since 2012. Also, each school’s 2024 schedule will include four opponents – two home and two away — whose winning percentages ranked among the second eight conference winning percentages since 2012.
While no school will travel to the same location to which it traveled in 2023, it should be noted that when a long-term schedule format is determined, it may not be possible to structure a schedule that does not include some schools playing at the same location in back-to-back years in the first year of a new format.