The SEC released its conference schedule for the 2024 football season last week, and it has created extensive conversation.
Many annual matchups are going by the wayside in favor of more diverse contests, and Auburn is no different. The Tigers’ annual meeting with LSU is gone, but there is still plenty of excitement.
AuburnLive’s Justin Hokanson joined a recent episode of On3 Roundtable to give his thoughts on Auburn’s schedule.
“It’s exciting right,” Hokanson said. “You know, to be able to play with one of the newcomers right off the bat and to get them in Jordan-Hare is cool. Whether it would have been Oklahoma or Texas, I don’t think it would have mattered. So, I think that’s just a cool opportunity for Auburn to host Oklahoma in [autotag]Hugh Freeze[/autotag]’s second season.”
Hokanson gave his thoughts on Auburn’s returning matchups and some of the other teams the Tigers will not see annually.
“The rest of the schedule, you know, you got Alabama and Georgia as you normally do,” Hokanson said. “You’ve got A&M and Arkansas, who you’ve been playing. Really the biggest differences in the ‘24 schedule — now granted, we don’t know past ’24, because it could go to nine games, but just for ‘24 — no LSU for the first time since 1991.
“No Ole Miss for the first time since 1989. And no Mississippi State for the first time since 1954. So those three teams were always a part of the West in the new SEC, but even going back, Auburn played the Mississippi schools a ton. It’s the first time that they won’t play one of those three, since like the 30s.”
Hokanson also gave his thoughts on Auburn not seeing the Bayou Bengals every year.
“So that’s the biggest difference is not having Ole Miss, Mississippi State, or LSU on the schedule and that LSU game really had grown into a really awesome rivalry since the mid-90s,” Hokanson said. “Really took off in the 2000s with (Tommy) Tubberville and (Nick) Saban and they just had some classics over the years. So, you take that one out, you move Oklahoma in, which is a new one, but Auburn fans, I mean, the new age of college football, they’re not too attached. I mean, they’re attached to Georgia, Alabama.”
Auburn’s schedule will be new, but it will surely be entertaining.
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