At the 2025 Southeastern Conference (SEC) Coaches Meetings in Destin, Florida, LSU head coach Brian Kelly became a central figure by announcing discussions about a formal scheduling partnership between the SEC and the Big Ten. Kelly, entering his fourth year with the Tigers, has suggested a bold initiative to further elevate the SEC’s competitive profile through consistent high-profile matchups with the Big Ten.
LSU coach Brian Kelly says officials this week did discuss a regular season scheduling arrangement with the Big Ten, including adding a ninth SEC game. Would be 9 SEC games + B1G game + 2 others.
“We want to play Big Ten schools,” Kelly says.
— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) May 28, 2025
Kelly underscored the exceptional strength and depth inherent to the SEC, positioning it as the nation’s premier conference. He expressed enthusiasm for the potential of regular-season clashes between the two powerhouse leagues, believing it would significantly enhance fan interest, television appeal, and playoff implications.
The structure outlined by Kelly would involve the SEC adopting a nine-game conference schedule, complemented by one guaranteed game against a Big Ten opponent annually. This approach would allow teams to schedule two additional non-conference games, thereby maintaining a 12-game regular season. The rationale behind the proposal lies in creating marquee matchups that excite fans and solidify playoff resumes and national recognition.
SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey offered measured remarks on Kelly’s proposal, noting that while individual schools within the conference have indeed scheduled games against Big Ten opponents independently, no formal conference-wide scheduling agreement currently exists. Sankey emphasized caution, advising against prematurely predicting the establishment of an official scheduling alliance between the two conferences. Nevertheless, he acknowledged the potential benefits and complexities of such scheduling adjustments.
The discussion outlined by Kelly is intertwined with broader conversations in the SEC about moving toward a nine-game conference schedule, a topic of considerable debate among coaches and administrators. Advocates argue this shift would increase the strength of the schedule across the conference, thus positively influencing College Football Playoff (CFP) committee decisions. However, opponents express concerns regarding preserving traditional rivalries and the added competitive strain on SEC programs.
All of this comes on the heels of there already being talk of the College Football Playoff expanding to 16 teams and each of the SEC and Big Ten getting four automatic bids. Further scenarios suggest that play-in games would become part of conference championship weekend. This all shows that college football will continue to change rapidly as it has over the last five seasons.
Until the SEC agrees to play 9 conference games, no one else should play them. They are cheaters who rig the schedule and play 3-4 weak out of conference games.
The only two teams that don’t act like this are LSU and sometimes Florida.
Lol
The B1G has lost to more D1AA/FCS schools in the last 15 years than the SEC, in far fewer attempts
I see how you completely ignored my point to push your SEC propaganda. You are not tough playing SE Louisiana State, South Alabama, Backwoods Tennessee and Eagle Fang Georgia every year. You also clearly are struggling now that the rest of college football can pay players like you’ve done since like 2006. Your time is over. But keep chanting for all of your rivals when you say “SEC SEC SEC.” Loser.
Lol, crazy to think how my FACTS upset you!
Moving officially to play 9 Trust games + 1 required non conference Trust Game would benefit the August through November Fans season (corporate sponsor & many more individual Fans from other socio-economic sports demographics).
Cancelling the Twothousand&five Sidekick ncaa Bylaw enthroning an official twelfth Scrimmage Vs. a 63 GrantsInAid Program who always has to travel to the Trust Host Campus would stop the patsy scheduling practised by the remaining Trust 4 Brands.
Cancelling the Scrimmage counting toward Exhibition bowl 6-win Gutter standards would evaporate the Revenue only Goose of Trust 4 Club 68 closed system Access Franchises.
I fully support Brian Kelly proposal.
I really like SEC go to nine game conference schedule similar to Big Ten.
I am a Big Ten fan & I have very full resect of SEC.
At least Big Ten & SEC will have one game each however more importantly Northwestern, Illinois & Michigan will play nine game conference schedule & same thing with Georgia, Missouri & Texas A&M.
Conference games are meaningful.
These guys, so called leaders, don’t know whether to wind their watch or look at the sun.
Make a damn decision and go from there. Either play 9 game conference schedules or stay with 8. Don’t tease us every year. You want to stay at 8 so you can schedule Charleston Southern and Samford, but you also want to pound your chest and say that you’re the best conference out there, when in reality, the B1G has won the last two CFP championships.
You’d love to play 9 SEC contests and one B1G school, but deep down, you are “a scared” that you might have too many 6-3 teams that lose that B1G game, leaving with you with a bunch of 8-4 and even 7-5 teams.
You know if you adopt a 5 plus 11, you’ll likely get 5 to even 7 teams in the CFP, yet you like the 4 automatics because in case of a bad year, your 8-4 team will get in over a 10-2 third place Big 12 school.
You think you’re tough, but you’re kind of soft at the same time.
In short, you want to have and eat your cake. Can’t do that. Either eat the cake or preserve it in the freezer. It’s so tiresome and eventually, the CFB fans will tire of it and the ratings will drop. Will they drop a lot? No, but they won’t climb either because enough is enough.
The Big 12 and the ACC are also softer than church music. They’re pissed that they only get 2 AQs, but if they’re also scared that under a 5-11 system, they might only get one team in. Last year, Iowa State or BYU would have gotten in and neither of those teams were threats to win more than one CFP game. That said, neither was Alabama.
Just about every SEC team plays a FCS team—-that’s pathetic. Are they going to give that game up to play Illinois? I mean if South Carolina had to play Clemson, 9 SEC games and say, Minnesota, are they really going to stick with those pesky SC State Bulldogs from the SWAC, which in reality plays more like a D2 than a FCS school.
Money will be dictator. If the networks throw money at the SEC for 9 games, plus one B1G game, then the SEC schools will adopt the new scheduling, plain and simple.
Florida would play for example, 9 SEC games, Florida State, “Rutgers,” and perhaps Coastal Carolina, or do they stick Long Island in there to get that guaranteed win.
You’re paying players now, make it more like the NFL. You don’t see the Buffalo Bills playing the Toronto Argonauts the week before their bye, do you? College football needs to schedule like the billion dollar entity that it is.
I am A Fan of 9 game conference 3 OOC & speaking of 3 OOC here would be My example.
Michigan: Alabama, San Diego State & Eastern Michigan.
Georgia: Ohio State, Georgia Tech & West Georgia.
Excellent & Interesting long article John!!!
If the SEC really wants to build a tougher schedule, STOP with all the FCS matchups. Nobody wants to watch that crap. Dan Rakow, I can’t believe you continue to support FCS matchups. It’s bad enough SEC teams currently play only 4 or 5 true road games every year. STOP with the gimme games.
Thomas Kern Sorry that post is up for sale by Me & I am doing it to be nice not snotty.
Hoping this works out. As a Longhorn fan, the only way the move to the SEC really makes sense, (beyond the money decision… I’m talking from a fan perspective!) is if Texas gets to play Texas A&M, Arkansas, and Oklahoma annually. The only way we get to have 3 permanent conference rivals is with a 9 game conference schedule, and it means that we play every other conference team, home and away, in a 4 year cycle. And Texas already was scheduling Big 10 games annually (plus Notre Dame or, prior to joining the SEC, an SEC team or pre-Big 10 USC. This is exactly what I want as a fan. And I imagine it’s probably what the fans of a lot of the SEC and Big 10 schools would enjoy as well.
My biggest question would be… how would the inter-conference matchups be chosen? Would they be up to the individual pathetic departments to play musical chairs and end up with their ideal matchup before the options run out? Would the conferences assign opponents based on some sort of system, trying to match top teams up, and trying to give lower teams more competitive matchups? Or would it be a rotation where you presumably would be moving through the other conference’s roster over a few decades? (Also, what about the Big 10 having 18 and the SEC having 16…? Do 2 Big 10 schools get an SEC vacation each year? Or do 2 SEC schools get to double dip each year?)
Obviously it’s all speculation at this point though…
Jeff As much as you want Oklahoma, Arkansas & Texas A&M be annual match up with your Texas Longhorns.
Me As a Georgia Bulldogs Fan I would Like Florida, Auburn & South Carolina be annual match up for Georgia.
Remember when we believed in those conference alliances back in 2021?
If the SEC goes to nine conference games and mandates a Big 10 opponent, that could very well spell the end of Florida-FSU, Georgia-Georgia Tech, Kentucky-Louisville, and South Carolina-Clemson, at least on an annual basis. How about you go to nine conference games, and let teams schedule who they want OOC as has been the case for 150 years or so?
I am a Fan of SEC going nine game conference schedule however as a Georgia Bulldogs fan I am not giving up Georgia Tech & my suggestion would be Georgia play Georgia Tech at Home & Ohio State Away & opposite Ohio State Home & Georgia Tech Away plus that would make a fair idea for Georgia when playing two P4 teams one Home one Away.
Why? Florida could play
9 SEC games
Florida State
Iowa
Bethune-Cookman or South Alabama
But, in reality Florida should play
9 SEC games
Florida State
Iowa
Texas Tech
You say that because you want schools to still have four easy games so they can get to 6. But, CFB is a professional league now–NHL teams don’t play AHL teams do they?
It’s time for college football to acknowledge that an 8-4 season against 12 real teams is a good marker. The NY Giants won a Super Bowl with a 9-7 record.
Teams should play 12 tough games against 12 similar teams. Bowling Green should play Connecticut, Texas-El Paso, Army, and New Mexico, not Alabama, Lehigh, Wisconsin and Troy.
FCS teams should play FCS teams–Pioneer League excluded since they don’t give scholarships. I’m okay with Stetson playing a D2 or NAIA school.
If Big Boy Football wants Big Boy $$$, then they have to be a Big Boy Football Association. That means, like the NFL, you have to play the best of the best.
If you’re going to have a 16-team (and eventually 24) playoff, you have to be NFL-style and have all teams play NFL-style teams. The commissioners know this, the ADs know this, the coaches know this. But they’re bucking history. Ohio State on the CFP last year, but the stodgies struggle. They see the two losses and say that this team can’t be as good as last year’s Michigan team, a team that played a very weak non-conference schedule. Once they get over this and realize that an 8-4 team, with 12 real games, could be a deserving champ, then things will be fine.
That’s what they’re struggling with–the gloss. Everybody wants to be 13-0, 12-1 and then run the playoff table. In a real football association, that should not happen, but when you play FCS schools and G6 schools, it can.
Time to man up Power 4.
I’ve never been more right in my life. You all know this
No SEC team, at least any of the big ones, are going to accept anything less than seven home games. They will play three home OOC games in the years when they play five road conference games. Plus, Florida-Georgia, Texas-Oklahoma, and Texas A&M-Arkansas are played annually on a neutral site which means only three true home SEC games against five true road games every other year. We’d all love to see teams play 12 competitive games, but it’s not going to happen.
Gerry I am a Fan of conference games no matter what if it’s a highly rated games like Michigan-Ohio State & Georgia-Florida or underrated games like Michigan vs Washington & Georgia vs Kentucky.
with the expanded playoff, and now no seeding benefit for a conference championship, it’s time to get rid of the Conference championship games and give every team an additional regular season game
Bill If i were to give up Conference Championship Game it would be additional regular season game which I agree with you.
I want this to happen because we´ll get more high profile matchups and the SEC will stop scheduling so many cupcake games.
On average, each team schedules one FCS team a year… just like BYU.
BYUfan My co-dream Big Ten-SEC match up are Michigan-Alabama & Georgia-Ohio State.
@HeyArnold!, I have no issue with FCS games unless they´re late in the season like how the SEC normally does. I mean when SEC teams schedule mulitple cupcake FBS games like Charlotte, South Alabama, and Marshall to get multiple free wins and unfairly boost their record to try and show how high and mighty they are when they just played a bunch of bad teams and didn´t actually prove anything. All of this also applies to the ACC and B1G. I think the SEC (as long as they´re at 8 conference games) and the ACC should prevent this by requiring their teams to play two power 4 teams and the B1G should go back to requiring teams to play one because I hate the amount of cupcake games.
SEC IS SO GOOD. WE BEAT THE BEST AND TOUGHEST FCS AND GROUP OF 5 TEAMS. WE SO TOUGH. WE LOVE ESPN. WE LIKE PAUL FINEBAUM. WE CAN’T THINK FOR OURSELVES. WE LIKE THE BEST SCHEDULES. WE MEAN MORE BECAUSE SOMEONE TOLD ME “IT MEANS MORE.”
To Facts & Ratface Dirtbag
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