The SEC has officially announced that its league members will play a nine-game conference football schedule beginning in 2026.
SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey made the announcement on Thursday. Earlier in the day, Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports reported that there was new traction towards moving to a nine-game schedule.
“Adding a ninth SEC game underscores our universities’ commitment to delivering the most competitive football schedule in the nation,” said SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey. “This format protects rivalries, increases competitive balance, and paired with our requirement to play an additional Power opponent, ensures SEC teams are well prepared to compete and succeed in the College Football Playoff.”
Below are details of the new format from the SEC:
The SEC will continue with a single-standings, non-divisional structure;
Each school will play three annual opponents focused on maintaining many traditional rivalries;
Each team’s remaining six games will rotate among the remaining conference schools; and
Each team will face every other SEC program at least once every two years and every opponent home and away in four years.
Long discussed but never implemented, the SEC will add the extra game in the third season after expanding to a 16-team conference with the addition of the Oklahoma Sooners and Texas Longhorns.
Beginning in 2026, SEC teams will play a nine-game conference schedule with three non-conference opponents. One of those three non-conference opponents is still required to be from one of the other power conferences — ACC, Big Ten, and Big 12 — or be a major independent (i.e. Notre Dame).
Per the release, the SEC will “…continue to evaluate its policies to ensure the continued scheduling of high-quality non-conference opponents.
“The SEC has established itself as the leader in delivering the most compelling football schedule in college athletics,” Sankey said. “Fans will see traditional rivalries preserved, new matchups more frequently, and a level of competition unmatched across the nation.”
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Ah, that's not good for me. As a Gator alumnus who's lived in Arizona for 30 years, I was looking forward to the home-and-home with ASU, if I could stay alive that long, heh. With this change, after already losing the home and home with Cal, I would imagine at least one of the series with ASU, Colorado, and Notre Dame will have to go, and the one that makes the most sense is ASU.
I, for one, hope that the ND/UF home and home proceeds as scheduled.
I feel like they made the right choice here. Now let’s see if they pick the right annual rivalries!
As a Texas fan, the options feel pretty obvious. Oklahoma, A&M, and the historic SWC rivalry with Arkansas make wayyy too much sense.
I realize it won’t be as obvious for some of the more traditional SEC Schools, many of which have 1 or 2 obvious choices and then like 4 schools that could fill that third spot.
Oklahoma will be interesting too as another newcomer but without as much history with a third school. They should play Texas, obviously. They have a long (if one-sided) history with Missouri so that makes sense. But after that, what? Proximity to Arkansas? Big 12 history with A&M? Someone they’ve played rarely but had a big game or 2 with like Florida or LSU?
It’s just how my brain works. I want to see the list!
… also makes it far less likely that we get another really weird home slate like Texas did this year. Playing the OU game in Dallas is great, but it means that with 8 conference games it’s possible you have a tough schedule and still only play 1 (on paper) exciting game at home… and in this case, not until the last game of the year. Really weird for home season tickets. 4 SEC home games every year instead of 3 every other year just workd better.
The next few days this place will be filled with cancellations of non conference series, and good ones. A lot of teams will not play in the regular season again thanks to this, Florida-Miami, Clemson-Georgia to name a few.
Doubtful
It's possible some of those OOC matchups may still hang on the balance of the auto bid proposal outcome rather than being outright cancelled.
Yeah, as a fan of this, I’ll admit that’s my one concern. I’d love a world where all the teams would book their 1 big OOC game and then some teams would book a second. Even one marquee and one “quality win” that isn’t necessarily a marquee opponent. But know Texas tried this a few years ago and eventually decided to lean into the big marquee game against the best teams they could schedule (Alabama, LSU, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Michigan) but backed away from that second game (Cal, Maryland, etc) because on bad years that can really hurt.
As a Texas fan this was a given, wanting my 3 annual rivalries and a balanced home/away conference slate around our neutral site game against Oklahoma… plus I don’t like 3 “lite” OOC game. But I can definitely understand concerns for the schools with their annual OOC rivalries who still want to play some other big name OOC teams. Maybe over time more teams will consider a second power OOC game to help take away the penalty of doing so? I imagine Vanderbilt and Mississippi State and such may not want to, but if most of the schools like Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan, Oregon, USC, Texas, Oklahoma, LSU, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, etc, *all* did it the risk of it making any of those teams look bad would shift a bit…?
Illiinoles Georgia Tech is very, very important than Clemson for Georgia.
Good. Best part is mandating the one power conference opponent. The B1G needs to bring that back. Penn State's OOC schedules are so bad this year and next year that I don't get to watch any meaningful football until October.
The one power conference opponent mandate for the SEC has been in place for several years.
But not the 9 game schedule, that gets them to 10 power conference opponents. I'm stuck with nevada, temple, villanova, florida international.
Penn State should be playing 10 power conference opponents every year
Uh, wut?!?
The Ducks visit Happy Valley on 9/27 this year for the White Out game.
Richard, Oregon v. Penn State is a CONFERENCE game. He's referring to the crappy OOC games.
David, he said he wouldn't get to watch any meaningful football until October.
Does he plan to not watch UO @ PSU?
Love this because it means less cupcake games.
I would not mind Georgia to play two P4 teams in OOC play like Georgia Tech & Ohio State.
Overall conference games are more meaningful.
The SEC will still have it's G6 and FCS opponents on schedule. More likely this is impacting the 2nd P4/G6 games scheduled so not necessarily are we going to see less cupcakes.
For Arkansas, give us Texas, LSU, and Texas A&M every year.
We’ll see. I’m betting LSU has about 6 or so teams who think they have a shot at being their annual rivals. Arkansas, A&M, Florida, both Mississippi schools, Bama, and maybe Oklahoma?
Meanwhile, I know you guys hate this, but Missouri can’t just play OU 3 times. OU should be on their list due to history in the Big 8, but beyond that you need to come up with 2 more if you want to shake them. Vandy maybe? But who else?
Yeah, Arkansas isn't getting A&M.
Mizzou likely gets tied to OU, Arkansas, and UK.
More boring schedules.
I want more OOC games. Conference clashes are overrated.
College Football do not need NFL like atmosphere & they are excellent as it is.
“More boring games”…?
I mean, look, I love hearing about big time non-conference games, but… only a few of these teams were going to schedule more than 1 already, right? A few had 2 exciting ones.
I realize I’m looking at this from the perspective of a fan of an SEC newcomer (Texas), but this likely sets us up for 2026 with a schedule something like…
Texas State
Ohio State
UTSA
@Auburn
Missouri
vs Oklahoma
@ Mississippi
Missouri
LSU
@ Arkansas
South Carolina
Texas A&M
Without this, replace a conference game with New Mexico State or Rice. I was thinking MAYBE if they were feeling bold you’d get Cincy or Houston but those don’t seem super likely in the currently playoff landscape? But who knows.
I don’t know. You never know how good or bad teams will be in a given year, but that looks like an exciting schedule to me? Unless your only definition of exciting is teams that don’t usually play each other, (in other words, you basically find Texas/OU, Michigan/Ohio State, Georgia/Florda, etc, boring). If that’s your view, cool, but I don’t think the majority of football fans will agree with you? All that said, even from that perspective, realignment is granting a gift for your particular tastes, since Texas hasn’t usually played Georgia or Florida or Alabama or Auburn or LSU. Oregon hasn’t usually played Penn State or Ohio State or Wisconsin or Rutgers. And the playoff games mix and match even more.
I’d be curious to know how you think most of the current schedules are more boring since most of them just have an extra cupcake.
Football September is built for OOC games & October & November is built for conference games.
If you do not like it, please do not watch college football at all.
ACC on the clock. Still at 8 games, I believe?
ACC really should join Big Ten, Big 12 & yes SEC to have a nine-game conference schedule.
The SEC acknowledging that the old system was benefiting them by rewarding weak wins against terrible competition. Will the rest of these loser SEC fans admit it, too?