SEC football fans are used to seeing the football schedule released for the next season around September, but this year has been different due to conference realignment.
The SEC football schedule for the 2024 season still hasn’t been officially released, but ESPN has gifted fans with the dates for 13 conference matchups next season, per their report on Monday evening. One of those matchups, the Georgia Bulldogs at Alabama Crimson Tide on Sept. 28, 2024, will be a rematch of the 2023 SEC Championship Game this weekend.
Georgia will also travel to visit the Texas Longhorns, new to the SEC in 2024, three weeks later on Saturday, Oct. 19.
As a new member of the SEC in 2024, Texas will also rekindle its heated rivalry with the Texas A&M Aggies, who will be led by new head coach Mike Elko next season. The two schools will meet at Kyle Field in College Station, Texas, to close out the regular-season on Nov. 30, which is Thanksgiving weekend in 2024.
The Oklahoma Sooners also join the SEC in 2024 and will play their first conference matchup at home in Norman, Okla., against the Tennessee Volunteers on Sept. 21. The Alabama Crimson Tide will also visit Norman in 2024, with the contest scheduled for the second-to-last week of the regular-season (Nov. 23).
ESPN also confirmed that several annual rivalry games will remain on the last week of the season (Nov. 30 in 2024), including the Egg Bowl between Mississippi State and Ole Miss and the Iron Bowl between Auburn and Alabama.
Below are the dates for the 13 SEC matchups in 2024 that ESPN revealed on Monday:
- Texas A&M at Florida – Sept. 14
- Tennessee at Oklahoma – Sept. 21
- Georgia at Alabama – Sept. 28
- Florida at Tennessee – Oct. 12
- Alabama at Tennessee – Oct. 19
- Georgia at Texas – Oct. 19
- LSU at Texas A&M – Oct. 26
- Alabama at LSU – Nov. 9
- Texas at Arkansas – Nov. 16
- Alabama at Oklahoma – Nov. 23
- Auburn at Alabama, Mississippi State at Ole Miss, and Texas at Texas A&M (Thanksgiving weekend; Nov. 28-30)
Back in June, the SEC revealed the opponents for every conference member for the 2024 season. Each team will play eight SEC opponents in what is being termed as a “one year schedule” as the league continues to discuss a long-term scheduling format.
The 2024 SEC football schedule is expected to be released in mid-December sometime after the SEC Championship Game on Dec. 2 but before bowl season kicks off on Dec. 16, a source with knowledge of the plan told FBSchedules.com in October.
ABC should do 9/28/24 Georgia At Alabama in Primetime 8:00PM ET.
Interesting. October Saturdays in 2024 include the 5th, 12th, 19th, and 26th. Texas and OU play at the state fair and have never played before October 6th, so they most likely play each other, in Dallas, on October 12th.
That means Texas probably travels to Dallas to play OU, and then instead of a bye week (like 2023) they return to Austin to host Georgia the very next week.
Have 114% confident that Texas Oklakoma now members of SEC will continue to play at Texas State Fair.
Oh, yeah they’ll keep playing there for the foreseeable future. My point was more that OU followed by Georgia is a pretty tough turn-around. Things like that can happen on any schedule, I just was filling in the blanks by figuring out when the OU game probably would be scheduled, and realized there might be a tough mid-season stretch.
The game will likely fall on the 5th
The OU-TX game will likely happen on the 5th because the fair opens on Sept 29th.
Michael – that’s possible, but that would be unusual. I double checked, and the game has only been played 1 time before the 6th of October in its entire 119 game history. In recent history it usually falls on a Saturday between the 6th and the 12th, and occasionally has fallen on the Saturday the week after that (but of course, that’s when Texas hosts Georgia). In the past it went later a little more often.
Also, Texas/OU isn’t the only event the Cotton Bowl Stadium hosts during the State Fair. The week before Texas and OU play, the stadium hosts Grambling State vs Prarie View A&M. It’s possible that this game could happen on opening weekend, September 29th as you said, but the pattern would be for them to play October 5th and Texas/OU to play the 12th.
Maybe it will be an unusually scheduled game next year, who knows. Still, I’m not aware of any reason to think they’d break their usual pattern, even if it means playing OU and Georgia back-to-back.
Welcome to life in the SEC! This ain’t the cushy Big 12 anymore!
Alan – I mean, I was around for when the Big 12 South was the toughest division in college football and Nebraska and KSU (and occasionally Colorado and Missouri) were all at their peak, back when Bama was struggling with finding a coach that didn’t get them in trouble with the NCAA, before Georgia’s rise, when LSU was on a lull. And we’ve all been there for post-1998 Tennessee. Florida was top notch at that point, but otherwise…?
And it won’t be the first time we played a highly ranked team right after Oklahoma. My sophomore year we played #12 Kansas State the week before, and then #3 Nebraska the at home for the next game (although, admittedly we had a bye between OU and Nebraska. Still, quite a 3-game stretch. A few years later, OU was #2 and then we played two teams in a row ranked #17, no bye. When we won our last national title we followed up the game against OU with #24 and #10, no bye. In 2008 we beat #1 OU, then #11 Missouri, then #7 Oklahoma State, before dropping the last-second heartbreaker to #6 Texas Tech. Heck, even in the 10-team Big 12 era there we played a top 10 team back-to-back with OU, no bye, 4 times (plus 1 time where the other team was #12).
Point is… OU and Georgia, back-to-back, without a bye week is notable, for sure. A tough couple games. But we can see what the rest of Texas’ schedule looks like (if not necessarily in the right order) for their first year in the SEC and… I mean… look, I know that, any given year Mississippi State, or Kentucky, or Arkansas can have a good year. I know that Florida could be better next year than they were this year. I know that A&M is always going to get a big win here or there to keep their fanbase drinking the koolaid. And I know that Vanderbilt is… er… working on their stadium…?
But those are out 8 SEC games: Oklahoma, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi State, Kentucky, Arkansas, Texas A&M, and Vanderbilt. A&M has the recruits to be a lot better if their new/old coach can get them there. Arkansas will play is like it’s a championship game. Florida might step up. But if you were looking at our 2024 schedule and picking which games you think would be the hardest, you’d probably guess Georgia (duh), vs Oklahoma (who we’ve been playing for decades prior to our SEC schedule), and @ Michigan (not an SEC game). And then there’d be a bit of a drop…? At least until you see what A&M’s new system will look like (and which players might transfer in or out) and how Florida improves in the offseason.
I’m not sure I’d rate it as any more or less “cushy” than our average Big 12 conference schedule…? (We’ve definitely played Big 12 schedules with more teams that will start the season ranked… but I guess it’s more of a CFB thing in general than an SEC thing that I’ve learned never to underestimate that someone like Miss St or Kentucky can be more dangerous than expected).
I’m a little disappointed that the UT/A&M game isn’t on Thanksgiving or Black Friday like it used to be.
Nov. 30 is Thanksgiving weekend, so it could still get moved to one of those dates.
Yeah, I feel like there have been past years where the week is scheduled and then the day is adjusted for Thursday or Friday…? But I agree that I hope it’s before Saturday. Hopefully ESPN sees the value in keeping it then.
I don’t think they will put that game up against the NFL on Thanksgiving night.
Black Friday is a possibility, although they may move LSU-Arkansas back to Black Friday (I’m assuming that game will move back to the last weekend of the season now that LSU won’t be playing A&M).
It’s definitely been on Thanksgiving before, and not that long ago. I know because I hosted family in Austin before we went to the game. Turkey Day tailgating or eating at home before (if it was a late enough game) was pretty fun, and with it going back to a game that swaps locations (instead of Texas hosting that week almost every year recently) it means you get to swap off which years it affects your family’s plans and which years it’s just on tv. As far as the NFL tv thing, I’m pretty sure they just timed it to be before or after the Cowboys game, and there’s no reason they couldn’t do that again. Texas always played on Thanksgiving from 2008-2015 (though, obviously after 2011 it was Texas vs a different Texas team after A&M left the conference).
Given that it has been ESPN/ABC that has had Texas playing Baylor and Tech on Black Friday the last couple years, it seems unlikely that they’d have too big a problem continuing that with Texas/A&M… or going back to Thursday, which historically happened a lot (including the last several times these 2 teams played).
They have had LSU/A&M on Saturday since 2017, and before that it was on Thanksgiving a couple times when A&M was the home team. Both Texas and Texas A&M were pretty used to hosting either Thursday or Friday every other year, while Baton Rouge, Waco, Lubbock, and Fort Worth might have had empty campuses on Thanksgiving, and in some cases could pull off a Friday game, or the easy answer with Saturday.
No idea how things will play out for Arkansas, LSU, Missouri, etc. Seems like it could make sense to put LSU/Arksnsas back on that week (either Friday or Saturday… it will be ESPN/ABC doing the scheduling so entirely within their power to put the games back-to-back instead of on at the same time if they want to. If they do switch off from Mizzou/Arkansas being the rivalry week game, it seems like it would make sense to pair old Big 8 opponents, Mizzou and OU, for that week. I know that OU won’t see it as a big rivalry game, but they stopped playing Okie State that week a while back despite being in the same conference still so the rivalry week tradition doesn’t seem to mean as much to the Sooners anyway.
It looks like the game was played on Black Friday from 1996-2007, then Thanksgiving from 2008-2011. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas%E2%80%93Texas_A%26M_football_rivalry
Interesting that Alabama is scheduled to play at Oklahoma the week before Alabama hosts Auburn.
Are we about to see the end of the practice where SEC schools play no-name FCS schools the week before Thanksgiving as a quasi-bye / tune up game before year end rivalry games?
Hopefully we’re about to see the end of the 8-team conference slate entirely. 2024 is supposed to be a “bridge year” and I’m still holding out hope that they do the right thing and go with the 3-6-6 scheduling model, with 3 annual rivals and 6 other conference games a year! Not saying that will eliminate ALL the late season cupcake bye weeks, but it certainly seems like it would limit them.
“Are we about to see the end of the practice where SEC schools play no-name FCS schools the week before Thanksgiving . . . ?”
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We can only hope.
My guess is the FCS games will be more spread out across the schedule. It’s been trending that way lately.
I feel like that game will fall on the 5th because this year, the game was on the 3rd.
How come Georgia has to play at Texas on October 19, while Florida gets the week off?? Doesn’t look fair to me!!!
1) They haven’t announced most of Florida or Georgia (or any of the SEC’s) schedule, these are just a few notable dates that ESPN dropped recently. Florida could be playing LSU, Kentucky, Mississippi, or Mississippi State the same week as Georgia @ Texas since none of those games have dates announced yet. They could also have a bye, but…
2) There’s a whole week between the 19th and the Cocktail Party. Georgia might have a bye on the 26th between the Texas and Florida games. Or they could play one of the other games that haven’t been given a date (Auburn, Tennessee, Mississippi State, Kentucky, or Mississippi. Also, Florida’s game at Texas hasn’t been given a date yet and could always happen that week (though there are several other possibilities, including a bye.
3) Point is, Georgia definitely won’t be playing Texas and Florida back-to-back without either another game or a bye in between, and there are a lot of games (and byes) that don’t have dates announced yet.
Off weeks haven’t been announced yet. More than likely Georgia and Florida will be off on Oct. 26 with the Georgia-Florida game on Nov. 2.
After seeing Bama going to Oklahoma the week before the iron bowl, nothing on this schedule will surprise me.
I count 5 Alabama’s 3 Texas, 3 Texas A&M 3 Tennessee’s and only two Georgia and two LSU games. I find that choice very interesting.
As a fan I am excited to see Alabama v Georgia in the regular season.
Next Year Dan 114% looking forward to watch Michigan/Minnesota The little brown jug game on CBS at 3:30PM & Georgia/Alabama on ABC at 7:30PM.
114% yes kevin both Georgia & Florida will have bye week October 26th & both will play the world’s largest Cocktail Party November 2nd & would like to see Georgia/Florida game be played in the evening either on ABC or ESPN.