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SEC annual football opponents set through 2029, per report

By Kevin Kelley - September 22, 2025
SEC Football

Photo: Matt Pendleton-Imagn Images

The SEC annual football opponents for the 2026 through 2029 seasons have been set, according to a report by Chris Low of On3.

The SEC is scheduled to officially announce each team’s annual opponents during a special edition of SEC Now on ESPN2 and the SEC Network on Tuesday, Sept. 23, at 7:00pm ET. The league will also reveal each team’s full slate of opponents for the next four seasons.

The 2026 season will mark the first for the league with a nine-game conference schedule format. Each member will also play three non-conference opponents, one of which is required to be a power opponent from the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 or major independent (i.e. Notre Dame), as it has been since 2016.

Below are the annual opponents that have been set for each SEC member, according to the report from On3. Per the report, the priorities in creating the annual opponents were “…protecting traditional rivalries, competitive fairness, rotational frequency and ensuring a home and away balance with a Power 4 non-conference opponent for the 2026 season.”

SEC Annual Football Opponents

Alabama: Auburn, Tennessee, Mississippi State

Arkansas: Missouri, Texas, LSU

Auburn: Georgia, Alabama, Vanderbilt

Florida: Georgia, South Carolina, Kentucky

Georgia: Auburn, Florida, South Carolina

Kentucky: South Carolina, Tennessee, Florida

LSU: Arkansas, Ole Miss, Texas A&M

Mississippi State: Ole Miss, Alabama, Vanderbilt

Missouri: Arkansas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma

Oklahoma: Texas, Ole Miss, Missouri

Ole Miss: Mississippi State, LSU, Oklahoma

South Carolina: Georgia, Kentucky, Florida

Tennessee: Alabama, Vanderbilt, Kentucky

Texas: Texas A&M, Arkansas, Oklahoma

Texas A&M: Texas, LSU, Missouri

Vanderbilt: Tennessee, Mississippi State, Auburn

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View Comments (35)

Comments (35)

I would like Georgia-South Carolina should SEC go all conference on Thanksgiving weekend however I am fully confident Georgia-Georgia Tech will continue.

Georgia will always play Georgia Tech on Thanksgiving weekend.

There is no reason to think that will change.

Arnold don’t get Dan all worked up about that weekend! He lives for thanksgiving weekend games. Never seen anything like it. He goes to town the week before turkey day and gets his bird, gravy, yams, stuffing and 3 bottles of jurgens to get thru that weekend.

While they got some of these right, I think they botched a few. CAPS are teams that should’ve been included.

Vanderbilt: Tennessee, KENTUCKY, OLE MISS
Ole Miss: Mississippi State, Lsu, VANDERBILT
Oklahoma: Texas, Missouri, MISSISSIPPI STATE
Mississippi State: Ole Miss, Alabama, OKLAHOMA
Kentucky: South Carolina, Tennessee, VANDERBILT
Florida: Georgia, South Carolina, AUBURN
Auburn: Georgia, Alabama, FLORIDA
The rest are spot on.

Seems like Vanderbilt got screwed the most as they are losing their geographically close and second and third most played rivalries in Kentucky and Ole Miss.

I agree with your proposed changes, except I think Oklahoma’s 3rd opponent should be Arkansas due to proximity, and MS St’s 3rd opponent should be LSU (MS St has played LSU more than Arkansas has).

At the risk of coming off like I’m unintentionally insulting some teams, I think some of these were missed out of “relative competitiveness”… the idea that some schools need to play Vandy, or others… because their other 2 opponents are traditionally powerhouses. Now, we can see that those situations can shift. If Vandy really as much of a balance at this point? Is Florida a powerhouse at this point? But I guess that’s maybe why they’ll revisit these matchups after 2029?

Vandy and Ole Miss have played 98 times. I would argue switching out Mississippi St for Ole Miss would actually make Vandy’s schedule harder.

3 protected opponents can also work with 4 rotating opponents on a 6-year schedule. 9 is too many conference games especially if we want both a selection of rivalries paused due to realignment back on the schedule and more top-notch OOC games.

The SEC can then require 3 OOC games against P4 competition.

In the one of the more egregious cases, Kentucky hasn’t played a P4 opponent in the regular season other than Louisville or Indiana since 1990 when they played North Carolina of the ACC. Their last Big 12 opponent was Kansas State in 1983 (when the Big 12 was still the Big 8), their only ever game against the Pac-12 (no longer a power conference) was Oregon State in 1976 (when the Pac-12 was still the Pac-8), their last game against an SWC (now defunct) team was Baylor in 1978, and their last non-Indiana opponent from the Big Ten was Ohio State all the way back in 1935.

Having the SEC drop to 7 conference games with a minimum of 3 OOC games against P4 opponents would allow Kentucky to play very lucrative games against other “basketball schools” like Duke, Kansas, Michigan State, and North Carolina.

You can’t get everything–remember every team will play every team twice every four years. Things will be alright—the 9 game schedule is what had to be done

Now it is time for the ACC to get on board.

The SEC will now see ALL members play 10 P4 games, so we can live with Alabama playing Eastern Michigan and The Citadel to get 10 good games—–

This progress

I agree John, playing every-other year is good enough imo, compared to having to wait up to 6 years to play some schools in some instances.

In an ideal world, all conferences would have only 10 teams, and you could play everyone every year (a la Pac-10 from 2006-2010), but we don’t live in an ideal world.

I would have switched Auburn-Vanderbilt and Kentucky-Florida for Auburn-Florida and Kentucky-Vanderbilt.
Auburn-Florida was a big rivalry before the SEC implemented division play.

Also, why is Oklahoma-Ole Miss a permanent fixture? I feel like Oklahoma-Arkansas should have been one because those 2 schools are so close, which would replace Arkansas-LSU. Replace Ole Miss-Oklahoma with Ole Miss-Vanderbilt, which would replace Vanderbilt-Miss St. Then establish Miss St-LSU, as those would be the only 2 with a missing annual game.

I agree with making the Auburn-UF rivalry an annual game, but saddling MS St with both Bama and LSU would be very unfair.

Didn’t think of this earlier when I posted, but the Oklahoma-LSU Thanksgiving weekend end of season game may either be coming to an end, or may rotate as the last game for both teams, as Oklahoma and LSU are not protected rivals for each other. Makes me think that the Golden Boot LSU-Arkansas game, and Oklahoma-Missouri would fill that end of season void.

Meanwhile the ACC should take a page from the SEC and give each of its football programs 4 protected opponents and 4 rotating opponents on an 6-year schedule as follows;

Boston College: Miami, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Virginia
California: Clemson, Louisville, SMU, Stanford
Clemson: California, Florida State, Georgia Tech, NC State
Duke: NC State, North Carolina, Syracuse, Wake Forest
Florida State: Clemson, Georgia Tech, Miami, Virginia
Georgia Tech: Clemson, Florida State, Stanford, Virginia Tech
Louisville: California, SMU, Stanford, Virginia Tech
Miami: Boston College, Florida State, Pittsburgh, Syracuse
NC State: Clemson, Duke, North Carolina, Wake Forest
North Carolina: Duke, NC State, Virginia, Wake Forest
Pittsburgh: Boston College, Miami, SMU, Syracuse
SMU: California, Louisville, Pittsburgh, Stanford
Stanford: California, Georgia Tech, Louisville, SMU
Syracuse: Boston College, Duke, Miami, Pittsburgh
Virginia: Boston College, Florida State, North Carolina, Virginia Tech
Virginia Tech: Georgia Tech, Louisville, Virginia, Wake Forest
Wake Forest: Duke, NC State, North Carolina, Virginia Tech

9 conference games for all teams would be too difficult with an odd number of teams, which is why the Big Sky should add CSU Pueblo to give it 14 football members allowing for 5 protected opponents and 4 rotating opponents on an 4-year schedule.

Illininoles97 Conference games & choices on TV airwave are part of CFB.

Rivalry games, top notch OOC games & TV ratings are NOT part of CFB.

Illinois-Wisconsin, Michigan-Michigan State, Georgia-Florida, Oklahoma State-Baylor & Syracuse-Pittsburgh are meaningful & part of conference games.

Oklahoma State-Oklahoma, Missouri-Kansas, Penn State-Pittsburgh & Maryland-Virginia are meaningless & no longer part of conference plus I do not miss these rivalries & I am much more focus on current state of CFB.

Dan, if non conference games are not part of CFB, then please shut your yapper about big ten playing sec teams in non conference games! You been having this hard on dream here for months. Stop talking out both sides your rear end because you know you have been gotten. Dan, who you crappin?

I was pretty close in my guesses, but definitely not quite perfect. I didn’t think Bama would get LSU or A&M would get Arkansas at first but kind of let myself get talked into those, so a few others were shifted around to make those work.

Interestingly, only 2 teams don’t play their most played SEC opponent as an annual rival: LSU misses Mississippi State and Arkansas misses A&M. In both cases, the reverse isn’t true because Miss St has played Ole Miss more than LSU and A&M has played Texas more than Arkansas. The Arkansas situation should be remedied soon because they’ve only played Texas 2 games fewer, so they’ll have played the Longhorns more often soon enough. LSU, on the other hand, will have several years to go before they’ve played anyone as much as Ole Miss.

A few teams have played OOC teams more… Missouri (Kansas), Oklahoma (Oklahoma State is tied with Texas for them, so that’ll be fixed barring an unlikely bowl situation this year), South Carolina (Clemson), and Texas (Baylor by 2 games, so that should be changed in the next few years as well).

I wonder… if there’s 1 team and/or fanbase that’s unhappy with their matchups (for any reason… too tough, too dull, lack of tradition or whatever) which would it be?

I just noticed I made a typo. I said, “LSU, on the other hand, will have several years to go before they’ve played anyone as much as Ole Miss,” but that should say, “… as much as Mississippi State.”

They’ve played Mississippi State 114 times, and Ole Miss comes in 2nd for them at 108 going into this season.

Also, does this mean that OU will be playing Mizzou for Thanksgiving weekend? Seems like, as long as the 4 teams that play ACC rivals that week continue to do so, OU/Mizzou has to be played that weekend unless both teams just agree to not play that weekend at all (or unless both teams decide to pick back up oSu and Kansas, respectively, and play those OOC games annually that weekend, which seems unlikely).

Yes, looks like OU and Mizzou will finish the season against each other for now.

But this also sets up for OU ending with OK St. and Mizzou ending with KU (way) down the road.

I suspect someone in Birmingham is not happy this leaked story is public knowledge. Now they can not hype up Tuesdays show. The SEC is losing its sheen!

I think they’re still going to be announcing the full conference schedules for the next several years though, right? That’s at least 48 more games to announce, plus the location of some of these match ups. Not sure if they’re announcing dates yet or not, but that would be more info too if they do (or if they do for the next season or 2 at least). Still plenty to hype the show with…

Wow, this is what you all have been screaming for getting and now that it’s here all you want to do is talk about what should have been.

These are the three protected opponents, the rest of the schedule rotates. Be happy for what you got that you wanted. They couldn’t possibly have put together all of the teams everyone wanted.

Yes I agree JM, while it’s not *perfect*, and it likely never will be, it’s a lot better than what it was for the previous 20 years.