SEC Announces Football Scheduling Plans Once Oklahoma, Texas Join League
The biggest topic of conversation at SEC Spring Meetings in Destin, Florida was the amount of conference games each team should play with Oklahoma and Texas joining the league.
Southeastern Conference Commissioner Greg Sankey announced Thursday afternoon that teams will play eight conference games plus one Power Five major non-conference opponent in 2024 when the Sooners and Longhorns are official members.
"We have been engaged in planning for the entry of Oklahoma and Texas into the SEC since the summer of 2021, but the change of the membership date from 2025 to 2024 creates scheduling complexities that can better be managed with a one-year schedule," Sankey said in a press release. "Creating a one-year schedule will provide a longer on-ramp to manage football scheduling around existing non-conference commitments of our members. It will also provide additional time to understand the impact of an expanded College Football Playoff and engage with our media partners as we determine the appropriate long-term plan for SEC football scheduling."
Alabama already has the non-conference game handled with a matchup scheduled at Wisconsin in 2024.
The SEC will also eliminate divisions that season with the two teams with the best conference record moving on to the SEC Championship game. This means that there are no longer guaranteed conference rivalry games each season like Alabama vs. LSU or Alabama vs. Tennessee or Auburn vs. Georgia.
"During this time of change, our fans will continue to enjoy traditional rivalries and begin to see new matchups presented by the addition of two historically successful football programs to the SEC," Sankey said.
However, it does allow for every school to play every other school a minimum of two times in a four-year period, unlike the current format where teams sometimes go more than five years without playing a league opponent or ten years between playing at a certain school. (For example, Alabama will play at Kentucky this season for the first time since 2013.)
Even though the league announced it will play eight conference games in 2024, it left open the possibility of expanding to nine SEC games in the years after. Alabama head coach Nick Saban has been a long-time proponent of playing nine conference games.
According to the conference, each school's opponents for the 2024 season will be announced June 14 during a special on SEC Network with the actual dates being released at a later time.
Texas will be coming to Tuscaloosa this season as a non-conference matchup, but we could see that exact game again in 2024 as an SEC game. It will be the Longhorns first ever game in Alabama. Oklahoma and Alabama played a home-and-home series from 2002-2003.
When the league expanded in 2012 with the additions of Missouri and Texas A&M, Florida and Alabama were the two teams to face both new opponents in their inaugural SEC seasons.
See also:
Nick Saban Wants NFL Model for College Football Amidst NIL Questions
