SEC eyeing nine-game conference football schedule in 2026

The SEC is set to officially add the Oklahoma Sooners and Texas Longhorns to the conference roster this summer and has already released the 2024 football schedule.

That schedule, which will include 16 teams for the first time, features each team playing eight conference games and four-non-conference contests. That’s been the standard format for the SEC for some time.

Back in June 2023, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey indicated that the 2024 slate would be a “one-year schedule” and would not be based on any previous scheduling pattern.

“Creating a one-year schedule will provide a longer on-ramp to manage football scheduling around existing non-conference commitments of our members,” Sankey said. “It will also provide additional time to understand the impact of an expanded College Football Playoff and engage with our media partners as we determine the appropriate long-term plan for SEC football scheduling.”

On Tuesday, Texas athletics director Chris Del Conte spoke with the media at an annual town hall-style meeting, where he revealed details of the SEC’s future football scheduling format.

“We have eight games scheduled right now,” Del Conte told Inside Texas. “We’re working on going to a nine-game schedule, but we have a ways to go with that. I would say this year (2024) we have an eight-game schedule. The following year (2025), we have another eight-game schedule. Then we’ll look at going into a nine-game conference schedule.”

Based on Del Conte’s comments, it appears that the SEC will again use a “one-year schedule” in 2025 consisting of eight conference games before the league finally moves to a nine-game format for the 2026 season.

While a nine-game football schedule does have its advantages, such as conference members facing each other more often, it does create an imbalance of home and away games. Most power teams prefer to play seven home games each season, which means that they would need three non-conference home games in years when they play four SEC games at home and five on the road.

That could squelch some longstanding non-conference rivalry games and could also lessen the number of big time home-and-home series in future seasons.

When asked about Texas possibly playing home-and-homes with some of its former Big 12 foes, Del Conte wasn’t sure.

“If they want to come play here at Texas, I’m all in,” Del Conte said. “I’m not sure yet how we can do a home-and-home until I know how all that balances out.”

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