The long-awaited decision of whether or not the SEC will play eight or nine-game conference schedules as well as the future of divisions once Oklahoma and Texas join the conference in 2024 has been decided.
On Thursday, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey announced that the conference will continue to play eight-game league schedules while the conference’s divisions will go away.
The pair of topics have been the focal point of the conference this week as the college football landscape continues to change. While there were a handful of SEC universities that showed high interest in going to a nine-game conference schedule, the SEC’s 14-member institutions voted unanimously in keeping the eight-game schedule according to Emily Adams of the Nashville Tennessean.
There is a caveat, however. The SEC will revisit the debate in 2025, one year after the conference officially welcomes Oklahoma and Texas into the fold. It’s possible that when the discussions begin again in 2025 that a nine-game conference schedule is then passed.
As mentioned above, however, the SEC will get rid of divisions starting in 2024. With 16 teams being a part of the conference starting on July 1, 2024, the conference opted to go without divisions instead of two divisions of eight. Without the divisions, the two teams with the best conference records will now play for the SEC Championship in Atlanta every year.
With an eight-game conference schedule and no divisions, each SEC team will have one protected rivalry game and then their other seven opponents will rotate. College football fans will get their first look at the SEC’s new scheduling format without divisions on June 14 when the 2024 SEC schedule is released via a primetime show on the SEC Network.