SEC annual football opponents set through 2029, per report

View 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.

• No Arkansas-Texas A&M or Kentucky-Vanderbilt? Those felt like non-negotiables.

• Most of the ones I projected got chosen it looks like.

• 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.

  • None of those are "lucrative" for football.

  • Wrong--if you're going to have these bloated conferences, you have to play conference games-----9 is plenty---they should actually play 10 with two P4 opponents and expand the CFP

    https://johnny228.wordpress.com/2025/09/21/college-football-nfl-style/

• No LSU-Alabama football game.

  • These are just the three protected, annual opponents.

• 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.

• Now--they will expand the CFP

  https://johnny228.wordpress.com/2025/09/21/college-football-nfl-style/

  • 12 teams is more than enough. Shouldn't the regular season mean something?

  • Dave you're not wrong, but it's going to expand because it will make everyone more money

    Just like the NFL

  • The regular season means a lot more with more playoff teams, not less.

• 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.

  • Likely. The Golden Boot was a Black Friday game for a long time.