How the SEC Should Model Its Football Schedule

Divisions are done and dusted. After 2023, the days of Atlanta hosting one representative from the West and one from the East are over. With the introduction of Texas and Oklahoma on the horizon, the SEC is reimagining how it models its schedule.

The league has stayed firm on its eight-game format as other conferences have accepted nine. Even with 16 teams in the SEC starting in 2024, the SEC is sticking at eight. It also published a one-off schedule for 2024, promising something more substantial for the future at a later date.

I’ve taken it upon myself to do the league office’s dirty work. I have devised a full-fledged model that the SEC can use for 2025 and beyond – until it poaches its next prey, anyway – that does its best to value vital rivalries while balancing schedules and keeping everyone engaged.

It’s also publishing schedules on a one-off basis, announcing the 2024 slate this past summer with the slates for 2025 and beyond a current unknown. The SEC is sticking to eight games for at least one more year, but how big can the league get before it evolves?

The SEC Should Play a Nine-Game Schedule

Now is the time. With 16 teams and a messy web of rivalries that should be a priority to feature, plus bountiful brands that the league office will want to see share fields, the SEC should drop the buy games the weekend before Thanksgiving and replace them with an in-conference contest.

With nine games and 16 teams, the SEC is set up to operate a Flex Protect Plus model with each team receiving three opponents that it will play annually for four-straight seasons, the most important matchups possessing permanent protection. That leaves six games unassigned, the perfect amount to evenly rotate the rest of the 12 teams to promise everyone a home-and-home series with each other conference member every four years.

That brings us to the most difficult aspect of the SEC’s scheduling dilemma: which rivalries do you protect? For example, Alabama-LSU is viewed as a marquee matchup that we know the league would like to prioritize, but the Crimson Tide have complained it would unfairly load their slate. By using a Flex Protect Plus system, Alabama could hold its third protected spot open while still meeting the Tigers often enough to keep the heat.

With that in mind, these are the series I’ve selected for annual renewals:

I’ll admit, I went scarce. There are plenty of rivalries that I did not choose to protect permanently that you could argue for. But my goal was to give each team at least one open slot and maintain a competitive balance. I want a healthy rotation. Secondary rivalries will get plenty of play with between four and six matchups per decade.

Here is an example of how the SEC’s protected pairings for 2025 through 2028 could look, with permanent opponents italicized:

Florida: Georgia, South Carolina, Kentucky

Georgia: Florida, Auburn, South Carolina

South Carolina: Florida, Georgia, Missouri

Tennessee: Alabama, Vanderbilt, Kentucky

Vanderbilt: Tennessee, Kentucky, Ole Miss

Kentucky: Vanderbilt, Tennessee, Florida

Alabama: Auburn, Tennessee, LSU

Auburn: Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi State

Ole Miss: Mississippi State, LSU, Vanderbilt

Mississippi State: Ole Miss, Auburn, Arkansas

Missouri: Arkansas, South Carolina, Oklahoma

Arkansas: Missouri, Texas, Mississippi State

LSU: Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Alabama

Texas: Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Arkansas

Texas A&M: Texas, LSU, Oklahoma

Oklahoma: Texas, Missouri, Texas A&M

With those relationships in mind, here are what the conference clashes and their locations could be from 2025 through 2032 for a few SEC participants:

Florida

Alabama

Texas

Under my plan, the SEC could broadcast matchups like Texas at Alabama, Tennessee at LSU, and Florida at Oklahoma with annual regularity while protecting its most important rivalries, secondary rivalries, and longstanding series that might not be the most heated but still mean something.

It would mean expanding the conference schedule, which in turn means constricting the non-conference segment. The SEC has four out-of-conference, in-state rivalries that are played on the final week of the regular season and matter deeply to each of the programs involved. The Gamecocks, Bulldogs, Gators, and Wildcats will all want to save those.

And they easily can, even with a nine-game schedule. Iowa and Iowa State have made it work for years while both playing nine contests in their respective conferences; USC has found the space for Notre Dame. All the league and its teams have to do is be willing to leave behind their habitually-scheduled buy games for the second-to-last week of the regular season. That doesn’t mean you can never have those sorts of matchups – there are still three open slots for every school not named South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, or Kentucky, and two for every school that is.

The playoff is expanding, and that means more wiggle room for entry. The SEC, like all the leagues, angles to get in as many teams as possible. It means more money, more prestige, and of course, more money. With invitations becoming less exclusive, the SEC shouldn’t feel as compelled to limit how packed its teams’ schedules can be. Teams with two losses will routinely make a 12-team playoff. Even three won’t be an automatic disqualifier.

In the coming landscape, the league would be better served transforming the time spent on the extra buy games into opportunities for marquee in-conference matchups that fans want to attend, viewers want to watch, networks want to broadcast, and advertisers want a piece of. ESPN isn’t paying the SEC $3 billion to try to sell Abilene Christian at Texas A&M in late November. For that money, the Mouse wants Oklahoma at Texas A&M, and so would almost everyone else.

For the SEC to put out the best product it can while maintaining competitive balance and historically heavy series, a leap to nine games and a Flex Protect Plus model is the solution.