One egregious omission sticks out from SEC’s new annual rivalry list

On Monday, the SEC's new annual rivalries were leaked, a massive step as part of the conference's new nine-SEC-game regular season format, overhauled from the longtime eight-game format used before the additions of Oklahoma and Texas.

As part of the new model, divisions are no more and each SEC team will play the ther 15 on a two-year cycle. However, each team will also have three annual rivals who they play every single year, rgeardless of the rest of the slate. On Monday, those pairing were announced, leaving fans to cry out their complaints or quietly enjoy their program's new yearly foes.

Most important rivalry games were protected, except for one massive showdown that was egregiously left off the list, and that's the Alabama-LSU game. The Nick Saban Bowl, a game between the two top programs in the SEC West (arguably the whole SEC) over the 21st Century, who've met every single year in one of the biggest games of the entire SEC slate. Reportedly, these are the matchups the SEC would rather have:

BREAKING: Annual SEC College Football opponents for the next 4 seasons per @clowfb👀 https://t.co/nm9NpSUTc2 pic.twitter.com/G0X3qkgJq7
— On3 (@On3sports) September 22, 2025

We all know that Alabama has intense rivalries with Auburn and Tennessee, and LSU has one with Ole Miss as well as Florida. Yet, somehow, LSU and Alabama don't draw each other. LSU's slate is flat out laughable. The Tigers get Arkansas and Texas A&M, who don't even sniff Alabama (or Florida) in terms of rivalry, while Alabama's third rival is... Mississippi State?!?

This is not an issue of overcrowding. If LSU played Ole Miss, Florida and Texas A&M, you could say... well, LSU didn't get Alabama, but at least they got three big rivals. But no, Florida isn't even in there after they and LSU were East-West rivals for decades! No, this is a deliberate choice to pit Alabama against Mississippi State instead of LSU.

What else would it be? Mississippi State and Arkansas could very well just play each other, then LSU could face Alabama. Why didn't the SEC just do that? It would have saved the rivalry. But this move is a clear indication that the SEC didn't want Alabama playing LSU, for some reason.

One suspicion? Alabama/LSU cried like babies. We know Alabama complained about imbalanced rivals when this proposal was first brought up, because Nick Saban pointed out that Auburn, LSU and Tennessee were listed as Alabama's rivals and then wondered how that was fair. Welp, no wonder Alabama conveniently avoids LSU, the best of those three programs, by far, to inexplicably face lowly Mississippi State instead.

Sure, the SEC may want balance in the schedules, but that's an absolute joke, because the league has never been about balance. Alabama's NIL budget and coaches' salaries aren't on any scale with Vanderbilt's, yet the Crimson Tide are quick to cry about getting a slightly harder schedule than the worst programs in the SEC? That's a laugh. It's not like Auburn and Tennessee are bona fide superstar programs, either, guys.

So cheers to all of us, who get to enjoy Alabama vs. Mississippi State for the next four years, instead of Alabama vs. LSU. Of course, let's note that we don't have any idea who had input on this list. But who knows, maybe it's partially the fault of the same cowardly attitude that has the Tide looking like little more than a splash of water on the football field lately.

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