Report: SEC decides on 8-game conference schedule

The long-awaited debate is over, the SEC moves forward with an eight-game conference schedule upon additions of Oklahoma and Texas.

The long-awaited answer to the question of how the 16-team SEC schedule will look in 2024 has arrived. Greg Sankey announced the league will stay with an eight-game conference schedule when Oklahoma and Texas make the move.

Meeting in Destin, Fla. for the annual SEC spring meetings, SEC leadership has been debating a league schedule of eight or nine games. For years, the SEC has played just eight conference games, even as fellow Power Five leagues moved to nine-game schedules.

According to Chuck Dunlap, SEC communications director, SEC members will be required to play their eight conference opponents and at least one Power Five or major independent opponent.

Each team will play one permanent SEC opponent and then rotate the other seven league games. For the Oklahoma Sooners, they’ll face the Texas Longhorns each season. That’s a rivalry too valuable for the league to not have them meet each season in the Cotton Bowl.

In addition to the eight-game proclamation from SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, the league will also remove divisions upon expansion. Similar to what the Big 12 will look like in 2023.

No divisions has the league in a situation where each SEC team will play everyone else at least twice in a four-year period.

While the nine-game schedule with three permanent opponents was a popular choice among fans and in some SEC circles, the league couldn’t gain a consensus.

As things stand right now, the Oklahoma Sooners only have two nonconference games scheduled for 2024, hosting the Temple Owls and Tulane Green Wave. The Sooners already replaced their 2023 game against Georgia with the SMU Mustangs, but athletic director Joe Castiglione will have to get busy filling out the Sooners’ schedule for the 2024 season with two holes on the slate.

A popular choice would be to renew Bedlam in 2024, but Oklahoma State already has three nonconference games on the schedule. So unless there was a cancellation, that would be unlikely.

Still, in the constantly moving world of college football, what seems certain today is subject to change tomorrow. Still, with uncertainty about the nonconference schedule, there’s growing excitement about the future.

Oklahoma fans and the program will be waiting with bated breath to find out which SEC cities the Sooners will be visiting in their first season in their new conference. The SEC will announce each team’s schedule during a primetime show on the SEC Network on June 14.

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