The SEC will adopt a nine-game conference schedule starting next season, featuring three permanent rivals for each team.
While many historic rivalries are preserved, the annual Alabama vs. LSU and Florida vs. Tennessee games are not part of the initial four-year plan.
The conference will revisit and potentially update the assigned rivalries every four years to maintain flexibility.
Rivalries have been assigned for the SEC’s nine-game scheduling format, which will debut next season and bring the conference more in line with other members of the Power Four.
Each member will have three permanent rivals and six rotating opponents for the next four years, when the SEC will revisit and potentially update the annual rivalries.
Under the new format, members will face every SEC team at least once every two seasons and play every opponent home and away at least once in every four-year span.
The format comes at the cost of a few rivals that have shaped the SEC and Bowl Subdivision for decades. Most notably, the first four-year run will not feature the annual rivalry between Alabama and LSU.
Here are the biggest winners and losers from the new SEC scheduling model:
Winners
Tennessee
The Volunteers’ initial set of rivals — Alabama, Kentucky and Vanderbilt — is about as friendly a three-game set as you can get in the SEC, relatively speaking. Let’s look at the recent past in each series: Tennessee has won two of three against Alabama, wrestling back control after dropping 15 in a row in the series; taken six in a row against the Commodores after a troubling three-game losing streak from 2016-18; and have lost just three times to the Wildcats since 1985, including wins in six of the past seven. While playing Alabama every year is a daunting challenge, consider that the Volunteers were not initially assigned Georgia or Florida alongside the Tide.
Florida
The Gators will still have the neutral-site date with Georgia but will round out their appointed rivals with South Carolina and Kentucky. As with Tennessee, think about who’s missing: Florida didn’t draw LSU, an annual rival since 1971, or Tennessee, as we’ll touch on below. Then again, the slumping and directionless Gators can probably use the help.
Historic rivalries (mostly)
The obvious payoff from the new schedule is the expansion of long-standing rivalries that had been squeezed by conference expansion during the eight-game era. Even beyond the three permanent rivals each team will face annually, the list of rotating opponents ensures that no in-conference series faces an extended, yearslong gap. This represents a course correction of sorts given how expansion and realignment has erased many of the rivalries that once defined college football’s regular season.
Scheduling flexibility
An important factor to keep in mind when evaluating the new model is that these rivalries aren’t permanent. While the initial assignments reflect the league’s current power structure, the SEC will review and potentially revise the three rivals every four years. These updates should reflect the inevitable evolution each SEC program will undergo across this stretch of time, providing a scheduling refresh at least twice every decade.
Losers
Alabama vs. LSU
This is the most notable rivalry left out in the move to nine games. Alabama and LSU have met every year since 1964, most often on the first Saturday of November, and have participated in some of the most memorable clashes in conference history — including the 9-6 overtime slugfest won by LSU in 2011 and Alabama’s 21-0 shutout months later for the national championship. Instead of an annual game against the Tigers, the Crimson Tide’s permanent rivals the next four seasons are Auburn, Tennessee and Mississippi State.
Florida vs. Tennessee
Here’s another key series that may be renewed down the road but will be notably absent during this first four-year cycle. The two inaugural SEC members have met in every season since 1990, very often with enormous stakes: the SEC East division, the larger SEC and a shot at the national championship. Looking ahead, this is one matchup that seems likely to click back into place when the league redraws these rivalries.
Arkansas and Texas A&M
No SEC team will have it easy. Texas will have Oklahoma, Texas A&M and Arkansas. LSU gets Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas A&M. On paper, though, no teams drew tougher immediate rivals than the Razorbacks and Aggies, who will each take on LSU, Missouri and Texas. Just looking at the start of this season, these three opponents are a combined 11-1 with four wins against Power Four competition.