All Sooners

Oklahoma's Task Gets Even Tougher as SEC Drops 2026 Football Schedule

Now facing nine Southeastern Conference opponents as well as a non-conference game at Michigan, the Sooners' journey in 2026 could be even more daunting.
John Hoover|
Oklahoma coach Brent Venables
Oklahoma coach Brent Venables | NATHAN J. FISH / THE OKLAHOMAN-USA TODAY NETWORK

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Oklahoma Sooners

A nine-game conference schedule should be no big deal for Oklahoma.

The Sooners played nine league games every year as a member of the Big 12 Conference from 2012-23, and did all right: seven conference championships and an 84-23 record (.785).

But these particular nine games — against nine SEC teams, with the dates and locations of those games officially revealed by the league Thursday night on SEC Network — are a whole other matter for Brent Venables and the SEC Sooners.

Oklahoma Sooners
Sooners On SI

OU opens Southeastern Conference action in 2026 with a daunting road trip to this year's conference champion — and a recent two-time national champion — Georgia, led by coach Kirby Smart. OU has never played a game in Athens, and their only previous meeting was a classic 54-48 double-overtime Bulldogs victory in the Rose Bowl CFP semifinal in 2017. Georgia is one of three CFP participants the Sooners must face next season.

After that two-week road gauntlet against the Wolverines and Bulldogs, OU gets a needed break with its only open date of the 2026 season on Oct. 3.

That open date comes just in time for the Sooners take on Steve Sarkisian and Texas in Dallas in the annual Red River Rivalry on Oct. 10. OU has lost three of its last four against the Longhorns, all games in which the Sooners have failed to score a touchdown at the Cotton Bowl. Texas leads the all-time series 65-51-5, although the Sooners have the edge since 1950 (38-34-3) as well as since 2000 (17-10).

On Oct. 17, the Sooners play host to Kentucky. The Wildcats were coached by Bob Stoops' baby brother, Mark Stoops, from 2013 until Dec. 1, when Stoops was fired after back-to-back losing seasons. UK's new coach is Will Stein. That's no doubt a bittersweet relief for big brother and the rest of the Stoops family, who would have hated to cheer against Oklahoma even once. OU leads the all-time series with the Wildcats, 2-1, with their most recent meetings a home-and-home series in 1980 and '82. UK won the first meeting 13-7 in the 1950 Orange Bowl — OU's fifth-ever bowl game.

OU travels to Starkville on Oct. 24 for its first ever meeting with the Mississippi State Bulldogs, now coached by former Sooner offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby. The Bulldogs are 7-17 in two years under Lebby, just 1-15 in SEC play. That will mark Venables' first game head-to-head against one of his old assistants (former Venables OC Seth Littrell was a Tennessee analyst this year).

On Halloween, Oklahoma hosts South Carolina. The Sooners are 1-1 all-time against the Gamecocks, with each team winning on the other's home field during the 2024 and 2025 seasons. After going just 4-8 this season, Gamecocks coach Shane Beamer has revamped his coaching staff for 2026.

Then Oklahoma visits Florida on Nov. 7 in Gainesville. The Gators are three-time national champions, but none since beating OU 24-14 in the BCS National Championship Game at the end of the 2008 season in Miami. The school fired coach Billy Napier this season and just hired Tulane's Jon Sumrall. The teams have met just twice in history: the '08 title game and the 2020 Cotton Bowl, a 55-20 OU beatdown.

In an unavoidable schedule quirk, OU hosts Ole Miss for the second year in a row on Nov. 14. The Rebels also will be sporting a new head coach as Lane Kiffin left after six successful seasons in Oxford to take the LSU job. Longtime SEC defensive coordinator Pete Golding has been hired to replace Kiffin, starting with this year's College Football Playoff. Ole Miss leads the all-time series 2-0, both in league play over the past two seasons.

On Nov. 21, the Sooners hosts old Big 12 rival Texas A&M in Norman. The long-suffering Aggies have completed a quick turnaround under former Duke coach Mike Elko. In his second season in College Station, Elko has led the Aggies to an 11-1 record and a spot in this year's College Football Playoff. OU leads the all-time series 19-12.

The Sooners' season finale has Oklahoma visiting another old Big 12 rival at Missouri on Nov. 28 two days after Thanksgiving. The Sooners beat Eli Drinkwitz's Tigers 17-6 in Norman this year and lead the all-time series 68-25-5.

The SEC Championship Game is set for Dec. 5 in Atlanta.

To recap, that's home games with Kentucky, South Carolina, Ole Miss and Texas A&M and road games at Georgia, Florida, and Mississippi State and Missouri, plus the Texas game in Dallas (OU is the designated home team this year).

Shifting to nine conference games was a big step for the SEC, which since expanding to 12 schools in 1992 has clung to an eight-game conference schedule — which explains why commissioner Greg Sankey has delivered the future schedule news in rationed, bite-sized portions.

After raiding the Big 12 in 2012 to add Texas A&M and Missouri and get to 14 members, the league’s unbalanced schedule and “permanent rivals” guidelines meant some schools simply couldn’t play each other. 

Georgia and Texas A&M, for instance, famously have played just one time, in Athens, between 2012 and today. The expansion to 16 members with the additions of Oklahoma and Texas only complicated that matrix.

But on Aug. 21, the SEC announced it would discard the eight-game model and adopt a nine-game schedule. 

On Sept. 22, news broke that the league had determined its scheduling framework for the foreseeable future with nine games, "annual rivalries" and alternating between opponents outside the trio of regulars.

Now, in mid-December, we know what, we know who, and we know where and when.

Oklahoma Sooners
Oklahoma's SEC opponents 2026-2029 | SEC

The 2026 season unfolds over just 13 weeks rather than 14, so teams will get only one open date instead of two. In the SEC, teams will play three annual opponents for the next four years and will evenly rotate through the other 12 members — six per year — on an every-other-year basis.

In Oklahoma’s case, the three annual opponents are Texas, Missouri and Ole Miss — and that will be up for review every four years.

In 2026 and 2028, the Sooners will play Kentucky, South Carolina, Texas A&M, Florida, Georgia and Mississippi State, alternating with them home-and-home.

Then in 2027 and 2029, OU faces the other side of the SEC: Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, Auburn, LSU and Vanderbilt, again home-and-home.

The Sooners’ non-conference schedule has been set for a while now.

OU opens at home on Sept. 5 against UTEP. The Miners went 2-10 under Scotty Walden this season and currently play in Conference USA but will be members of the Mountain West Conference when they come to Norman next season.

Oklahoma visits Michigan for the first time ever on Sept. 12 as the two historical powerhouses meet in Ann Arbor at The Big House. OU won this year’s contest 24-13 in Norman. Michigan is 9-3 this season, but will have a new look next fall as the school just fired head coach (and former OU offensive lineman) Sherrone Moore on Wednesday afternoon.

Then on Sept. 19, the Sooners conclude non-conference play at home against New Mexico. The Lobos are 9-3 and have played in the Mountain West Conference since 1999. This season, under coach Jason Eck, they are playing in their first bowl game since 2016. They take on Minnesota on Dec. 26 in the Guaranteed Rate Bowl.

In their first two seasons as a member of the SEC under Venables, the Sooners are 8-8 — 2-6 last year, 6-2 this year. 

Venables feels his first four seasons — a roller coaster at times going 6-6, 10-2, 6-6 and 10-2 — allowed him the time to develop a culture that values personal relationships and loyalty as the right kind of fuel to eventually produce championships. 

Time will tell, but a return to the College Football Playoff in year four is a good sign he’s right. Now he'll have to replicate this year's success as he once again navigates one of college football's most demanding schedules.

Published | Modified
John E. Hoover
JOHN HOOVER

John is an award-winning journalist whose work spans five decades in Oklahoma, with multiple state, regional and national awards as a sportswriter at various newspapers. During his newspaper career, John covered the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Arkansas Razorbacks and much more. In 2016, John changed careers, migrating into radio and launching a YouTube channel, and has built a successful independent media company, DanCam Media. From there, John has written under the banners of Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation and a handful of local and national magazines while hosting daily sports talk radio shows in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and statewide. John has also spoken on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City in a successful effort to put more certified athletic trainers in Oklahoma public high schools. Among the dozens of awards he has won, John most cherishes his national "Beat Writer of the Year" from the Associated Press Sports Editors, Oklahoma's "Best Sports Column" from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Two "Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting" Awards from the National Athletic Trainers Association. John holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from East Central University in Ada, OK. Born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, John played football and wrote for the school paper at Ada High School in Ada, OK. He enjoys books, movies and travel, and lives in Broken Arrow, OK, with his wife and two kids.

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