The SEC football opponents for the 2026 through 2029 seasons will be announced Tuesday during a special edition of SEC Now on ESPN2 and the SEC Network, according to an announcement from the league on Friday. The announcement is slated for Tuesday, Sept. 23 at 7:00pm ET.
The 2026 SEC football schedule will mark the first for the league with a nine conference game format. SEC teams will play nine conference members and three non-conference opponents. One of those three non-conference opponents 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.
Each SEC team will be assigned three permanent opponents, or rivals, that they will play each season. The remaining six opponents will rotate each season so that each SEC school plays every other team in the league in a four-year span.
Below is the complete list of non-conference opponents for each SEC football team in 2026. Note that all games are considered tentative until the complete schedule is released in mid-December.
2026 SEC Football Opponents
09/05 – East Carolina
09/12 – USF
09/19 – Florida State
09/05 – North Alabama
09/12 – at Utah
09/26 – Tulsa
09/05 – Baylor
09/12 – Southern Miss
09/26 – Jacksonville State
09/05 – Florida Atlantic
09/12 – Campbell
11/28 – at Florida State
09/12 – WKU
09/19 – at Louisville
11/28 – Georgia Tech
TBA – Tennessee State
Georgia’s game vs. Tennessee State has not been announced.
09/05 – Youngstown State
09/26 – South Alabama
11/28 – Louisville
09/05 – Clemson
10/03 – McNeese
LSU needs to add one opponent.
09/05 – ULM
09/12 – at Minnesota
09/19 – Troy
11/21 – Tennessee Tech
Mississippi State needs to postpone/cancel one opponent.
09/05 – Arkansas-Pine Bluff
09/12 – at Kansas
11/21 – Troy
09/05 – UTEP
09/12 – at Michigan
09/19 – New Mexico
09/12 – at Charlotte
11/21 – Wofford
Ole Miss needs to add one opponent.
09/05 – Miami (FL)
09/12 – Towson
11/28 – at Clemson
09/05 – Furman
09/12 – at Georgia Tech
09/19 – Kennesaw State
09/05 – Texas State
09/12 – Ohio State
09/19 – UTSA
09/05 – Missouri State
09/12 – Arizona State
11/21 – Tarleton State
09/05 – Austin Peay
09/12 – Delaware
09/19 – NC State
FOOTBALL SCHEDULES
State should offer the ULM game to Ole Miss.
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Love how UGa and USC are each playing 11 P4 games. It just means more. ;)
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This should force the ACC’s hand. Of course they have the mathematical problem of 17 teams. They should just go ahead and bite the bullet and count matches against Notre Dame as conference games.
Hmmm….so each of the 16 SEC teams play 3 non-conference opponents for a total of 48 non-conference games. So far, only 9 of these games are away games. Typical SEC, just padding the wins to make most every team bowl eligible.
If you are going to make an argument, you have to look at all the numbers:
2026 Non-conference games (as of 9/19)
ACC Home: 41
ACC Away: 20
ACC Neutral: 2
*ACC plays one more non-conference game than the other three conferences.
B1G Home: 43
B1G Away: 7
B1G Neutral: 1
B12 Home: 32
B12 Away: 11
B12 Neutral: 3
SEC Home: 37
SEC Away: 9
SEC Neutral: 0
*Not counting 1 home opponent for MS State and UGA that need to be canceled.
Although all schedules aren’t finalized, the Big Ten has two more teams than the SEC, but two less road games.
Seems like Ole Miss needs a Power 5 opponent for the opening weekend of the season. They never replaced the USC game and therefore aren’t compliant with the SEC’s Power 5 scheduling requirement.
Alternatively, they could play Georgia to open the season (Georgia also doesn’t have a Week 1 opponent, depending on the status of the Tennessee State game), but would still need to find a Power 5 opponent for another week.
Pitt.
https://fbschedules.com/ole-miss-pitt-finalizing-home-and-home-football-series-for-2026-2030/
You are welcome to have Tennessee State as Ole Miss OOC opponent courtesy of Georgia Bulldogs supporter.
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.
Well said and I think the same way, and if these conferences keep getting bigger I think people will get tired of the same games every 3 years and boring non conference games
Dan where are you getting this Michigan st Kentucky talk as a rivalry? You hit your head? He knows Kentucky will play Louisville every so they won’t be playing other power 4 teams now they went to a 9 game schedule. You really are something and then to call names.
So, this might be strange, but the thing I’m MOST interested in seeing with the new scedule is something fairly subtle. I’m a Longhorn fan, so while it will be cool to see who everyone else is given as permanent annual rivals, ours SHOULD be fairly obvious. Actually, that would be a very very very very big surprise, if it isn’t Arkansas, Oklahoma, and A&M.
BUT, what will be interesting is whether they have to make either A&M or Arkansas play back-to-back games in Austin between 2025 and 2026. Why? Well, since OU is always a neutral site game, regardless of whether we’re the “home” or “away” team… it seems like it would make things easier for the scheduling folks if they give us 1 home, 1 away, and 1 neutral site game with our annual opponents. Otherwise they’ll have to balance out the 4 – 4 – 1 schedule with other SEC games, and while there’s probably a way to do that, it seems like it would be more complicated? And… to be fair, they appeased A&M by giving them the first game we played when we joined the SEC, despite our last Big 12 game with them also being in College Station. So… it would probably lead to whining, but it would probably make more sense than making Arkansas play us in Austin twice in a row? Who knows. Not a big deal for where we play any of them. Just seems like it will help with the rest of the scheduling slate… and it’s just how my brain works to want to think this stuff out.
Conversations on this article is over to protect further ramblings rather be safe than sorry.
Enjoy rest of your evening everybody.
College Football desperately needs to expand the regular season to 13 or 14 games. If the players want to be paid like professionals, they need to schedule like it. NFL plays up to 24 games. College cap right now is 17.
We need more non-con games and more time to play them.
14 would allow
9 conference
1 or 2 P4.
2 or 3 G6.
1 FCS
In August, start the week before the current Week Zero with the FCS tune ups and/or kickoff style games. You could fill three weekends (Thursday to Sunday) of games leading up to Labor Day.
You could also make better use of Championship weekend, too. That would take eliminating conference title games OR doing other games alongside them – rather than play ins within a league, maybe do not con games where the 3s and 4s host games against other conferences lower seeds.
So many better ways than the current 12 game model
TigerFan 12 is excellent for right now however I would be open for additional week or two in future.
All I can say is that UGA better be scheduled to be AT Texas A&M in the first year of this 4 year schedule (2026). Also Texas A&M should visit Kentucky (in Lexington) as well. Two things that haven’t happened since they joined the SEC in 2012.