In a matter of weeks, we’ll be swapping Saturday afternoons out in the sun for Saturday afternoons reserved on the couch as the 2023 college football season draws near. As the SEC embarks on a final season in its 12-team format, all eyes will be on who can dethrone Georgia for a conference title.
However, the reality is that for some programs, an easier path will await them for a chance to play at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Dec. 2. For others, they will need to earn every win against the SEC’s toughest slate of opponents.
Saturday Down South recently shared the toughest SEC football schedules in 2023 based on win percentage from the season prior. It’s necessary to call out that ranking the toughest schedules by “win percentage” does not equate to “strength of schedule.”
In this breakdown, which considers non-conference opponents and SEC competition, a program that earned nine or ten wins last season may not necessarily be equipped for a similar level of success in 2023. The stats may tell one side of the story, but of course, from a subjective point of view, one can make the case that a program faces a tougher road based on an opponent’s upside ahead of the new season.
Still, we’re just under two Saturdays away from meaningful college football, so we have to fill the time in between with every possible preseason analysis and projections. Among them is evaluating this year’s schedule based on historical success.
Here are the 2023 SEC football schedules, ranked from easiest to toughest, based on win percentage from last season. We’ve also called out each team’s “notable opponents,” which are the programs that finished with eight or more wins in 2022.