This week, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey announced the league would stick with the eight-game schedule, at least for the 2024 season.
He said the conference will reevaluate that decision in 2025 and for the years that follow.
One person who sees both sides is Alabama head coach Nick Saban.
“I think there’s good and bad in both,” Saban told The Athletic (subscription needed). “I know there are some issues going to nine games in terms of future schedules that we put together in terms of playing or trying to play two Power Five schools each year to go along with the SEC schedule.
“Eventually we’ll probably move to more involvement in more SEC games, but I think this has happened so quickly it was really hard to make a lot of changes that fast. Whatever it is, we’re excited about the opportunities and challenges of playing really good games against really good teams whether we play eight or nine (SEC games).”
The decision to stay with an eight-game conference schedule means the Sooners have to schedule two more opponents for the 2024 season, one of which has to be a Power Five school.
What makes the most sense is to find a team in the league they are leaving, the Big 12.
While Sooner fans would love to see Bedlam be that game, that doesn’t sound likely. The Oklahoma State Cowboys would have to cancel one of their 2024 nonconference games to make that work. The team that sounds like a possibility is one Sooner fans would not be excited to see: Kansas State.
Currently, the Sooners only have Temple and Tulane on their schedule. So there’s some work to be done for athletic director Joe Castiglione to make the Sooners schedule right for the 2024 season.
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