It’s official. The SEC has announced it will move to a nine-game schedule starting in 2026.
The conference released a statement:
“Adding a ninth SEC game underscores our universities’ commitment to delivering the most competitive football schedule in the nation. 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.”
Besides a nine-game schedule, the SEC has to play at least one high-quality opponent from either the Big Ten, ACC, Big 12, or Notre Dame.
In addition, the SEC will continue with a single-standings, non-divisional structure
- Each school will play three annual opponents, maintaining many traditional rivalries
- Each team’s remaining six games will rotate among the remaining conference schools
- Each team will face every other SEC program at least one every two years and every opponent home and away in four years
Former Alabama head coach Nick Saban has been advocating for years that the conference move to a nine-game schedule, until he found out that the three permanent teams on the Tide’s schedule would be Tennessee, Auburn, and LSU.
SEC fans also complained that teams like Georgia had an easier path to the SEC Championship every year because of their schedule in the SEC East, but that changed last year when the conference decided to do away with the divisions and just have the top two teams in the conference face each other in the SEC Championship game.
The move by the SEC also forces the other major conferences and Notre Dame to do the same thing to make the College Football Playoff. Now, it will be hard to leave out an SEC team or teams with this tough of a schedule.