Tag: 2024 College Football Season

Alabama will host Georgia in first 2024 SEC football game announced

The 2023 SEC Championship game rematch will take place in Tuscaloosa on Sept. 28 as Kirby Smart will again try to get the better of his old boss.

The 2024 SEC football schedule will be released Wednesday night, but the conference dropped a teaser in the morning to get everybody excited.

The Georgia Bulldogs will travel to Tuscaloosa to play the Alabama Crimson Tide on Sept. 28, a night game that will be broadcast on ABC.

The two programs combined to win the last three national championships, with Alabama winning in 2020 and Georgia taking home the trophy each of the past two seasons. The two met earlier this month in the 2023 SEC Championship, with Nick Saban’s Crimson Tide getting the better of Kirby Smart and Georgia for a 27-24 victory. The loss ended a 29-game win streak for the Bulldogs, a conference record.

Kirby Smart, Saban’s former defensive coordinator from 2008-2015, took the Georgia coaching job ahead of the 2016 season. In his tenure as a head coach, he’s faced his old boss six times. Alabama won five of the games, but Smart’s lone victory was a big one, beating the Crimson Tide 33-18 in the 2021 CFP National Championship game.

The rest of the 2024 SEC Football schedule will be revealed at 7 p.m. ET on Wednesday in a broadcast aired on ESPN.

 

It’s official: Texas A&M will host Texas on Thanksgiving weekend during the 2024 season

It has been announced that Texas A&M will host Texas during Thanksgiving weekend at the end of the 2024 college football season.

While everyone knows that the Lone Star Showdown between Texas A&M and the Texas Longhorns will finally resume in 2024 after a 12-year hiatus when the game would be played has stayed on the mind of both fanbases since the 2023 schedule was announced earlier this year. As of Monday, we have finally received an answer.

Through various sources, ESPN announced that Texas A&M’s annual season finale vs. LSU will now be played on Oct. 26, meaning that the return of one of the greatest rivalries in college football will return to its usual slot and will take place on Saturday, Nov. 30. In new Texas A&M head coach Mike Elko’s first season, the former Duke head coach will open the season at home vs. Notre Dame, where Elko also served as defensive coordinator for the Irish during the 2017 season.

Despite the coaching change, expectations remain sky high for a Texas A&M team that should retain a bulk of the roster from the 2023 season, led by quarterback Conner Weigman, who is poised to return from his brutal season-ending injury in October. On the flip side, Texas will enter the SEC next season after an impressive 2023 campaign, and if both programs happen to achieve their goals, the Lone Star Showdown could mean more than any matchup during the final week of the 2024 regular season.

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Oklahoma Sooners to start SEC play against the Volunteers, date set for Alabama per ESPN

The Oklahoma Sooners will face a familiar foe in their first game in the SEC according to a report from ESPN.

The Oklahoma Sooners have wrapped up their final season in the Big 12. This offseason, the Sooners will be gearing up for the SEC.

The Sooners learned who their opponents would be back in June, and now we’re getting a first glimpse at some of the dates on the schedule.

The schedule is expected to be released sometime in December. On Monday evening, ESPN’s Chris Low reported the dates for two Sooners matchups in 2024, Both of which will be played in Norman, Okla.

The Oklahoma Sooners are reportedly set to open SEC play at home on Sept. 21, 2024, against the Tennessee Volunteers. This will mark the return of Oklahoma’s last national champion quarterback, Josh Heupel. Heupel has been the head coach of the Tennessee Volunteers the last two seasons.

The other matchup will take place toward the end of the season and will have SEC title game implications. Oklahoma will host Nick Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide on Nov. 23, 2024.

Both home dates have already created a ton of buzz. The return of Heupel is one that many are excited about. It provides an opportunity for Oklahoma and its fans to give him the proper return he deserves. The Vols last played in Norman back in 2014, and Oklahoma came out on top.

Anytime Alabama comes to town, it has a chance of being a game of the week type contest. They last played in Norman in 2002, with the Sooners coming away with the win.

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Oklahoma and Texas highlight 2024 SEC schedules

The Oklahoma Sooners and Texas Longhorns first taste of SEC action highlights the SEC’s 2024 conference schedule.

On Wednesday, the SEC officially released the conference schedules for each of the conference’s soon-to-be 16 teams. 

The 2024 season of course will mark the first year in which Oklahoma and Texas will officially be members of the SEC after finishing up their residency in the Big 12 this upcoming academic year. 

With that, the Sooners and Longhorns are the highlights of what should be a very intriguing 2024 season in the Southeastern Conference. 

After announcing earlier this month that the conference will have an eight-game conference schedule with the additions of Oklahoma and Texas, at least for the time being. The 2024 season will also see the SEC go away from its’ East and West standings much like the Big Ten recently did in preparation for their 2024 season that will see the addition of UCLA and USC. 

Without divisions, the conference’s top two teams when it comes to conference record will advance to Atlanta following the conclusion of the regular season. 

Highlights of the 2024 conference schedule include quite a few games featuring the Sooners and Longhorns non shockingly. With it being the first year of the two programs within the conference, it will be the first opportunity for the college football world to get to see premier matchups in the regular season. 

While no dates have been set yet, matchups that will be sure to catch everyone’s attention include Alabama at Oklahoma, Arkansas at Texas, Auburn at both Georgia and Alabama, Florida at Texas, Georgia at Texas and Alabama, LSU vs Oklahoma, LSU at Texas A&M and at Florida, Oklahoma at Auburn, Tennessee at Oklahoma, and Texas A&M vs Texas. 

That of course doesn’t include traditional matchups like Arkansas vs Texas A&M, Florida vs Georgia, or Oklahoma vs Texas.  

All in all, the 2024 college football season will usher in a new era of college football with playoff-worthy matchups taking place on a nearly weakly basis within both the Big Ten and SEC.

Iowa Hawkeyes among Big Ten leaders in 2024 travel distance

With the introduction of USC and UCLA, teams like Iowa will face a new challenge starting in 2024: increased travel distance.

I hope this 2024 Iowa Hawkeyes football team likes traveling.

The Hawkeyes will be doing a ton of that in the newly revamped 2024 Big Ten Conference schedule. One of the biggest challenges in the new Big Ten will be that travel dynamic. No other conference in the country stretches literally from sea to shining sea, from fast east Piscataway, NJ to the sunny west coast of Los Angeles, Calif. This truly is the America that James K. Polk envisioned.

As broken down by Cameron Salerno of CBS Sports, no team in college football will have to travel more than USC and UCLA. Truly the price of admission into the Big Ten.

The team who travels the most in Big Ten play behind the Southern California schools is Nebraska — and USC and UCLA are traveling over 225% more than Nebraska’s 7,022 mile roundtrip conference schedule. Purdue and Indiana travel the least in the conference next fall, and the new schools will travel 618% more miles than its conference foes. – Salerno, CBS Sports.

I bet whoever at UCLA had the bright idea to schedule nonconference road games at Hawaii and LSU is absolutely kicking themself.

The Iowa Hawkeyes will travel the fourth-most total miles for Big Ten away games with 6,682. While Nebraska slightly edges out Iowa thanks in large part to their trips to UCLA and Penn State, Iowa has another layer to the mileage.

Iowa has to travel to play USC on the road. The Trojans should undoubtedly be a top-10 ranked team for the occasion. This will be the first time the Hawkeyes play a Power 5 opponent west of Nebraska during the regular season since 2010. In addition, the Hawks also have to travel to Columbus, Ohio, to take on Ohio State, likely another top-10 ranked team.

Iowa also has to travel to play Rutgers. That means they have to go all the way to Northern Jersey. Eww!

If you are a Hawkeye fan planning on making that trip, mentally prepare yourself. The smell of the northern half of the my state is pretty fitting for the teams that play up there.

Distance traveled and the unfortunate situation of having to visit northern New Jersey are just a few of the new obstacles of the revamped Big Ten that Iowa will have to navigate.

The 2024 Hawkeyes: Truly from sea to shining sea.

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Are 2024 schedules compliant with new SEC league rules?

Only one SEC school doesn’t meet the new scheduling rules for the 2023 season.

The SEC will look quite a bit different when we kick off the 2024 college football season on Aug. 31. No longer will you see SEC West vs SEC East. Divisions are now a thing of the past. The league will officially expand to 16 teams with the additions of the Oklahoma Sooners and Texas Longhorns.

On Thursday we discovered that the SEC will stick with the eight-game and four-game nonconference schedules. However, they will revisit these rules for the 2025 season.

The only stipulation to the 2024 schedule is that each team must schedule at least one Power Five nonconference opponent. There won’t be any loading up on FCS and bottom-tier Group of Five teams.

With a full year between now and the start of the season, we dive into each of the 16 team’s schedules in 2024. Which school isn’t compliant with the new rules?

LOOK: CFP committee reveals what the 2022 field expanded to 12 would have looked like

CFP committee showed what the 2022 playoffs would have looked like with 2024 rules and game sites.

The college football landscape will have many changes when they kick off the 2024 season. Not only will the Oklahoma Sooners, UCLA Bruins, USC Trojans, and Texas Longhorns change conferences, but we will also have expanded playoffs.

The new rules will give all five power conferences an automatic bid with the highest-seeded Group of Five school earning the sixth automatic bid. The next six spots will be given to the highest-ranked teams. The top four seeds will be based on the four highest-ranked conference champions getting bye weeks.

The College Football Playoff committee distributed the matchups for the 2022 field if they were using the expanded field.

No. 1 Georgia would have played the Tennessee-Kansas State winner in the Sugar Bowl. No. 4 Utah would have played the TCU-Tulane winner in the Fiesta Bowl. No. 3 Clemson would have played the Ohio State–Penn State winner in the Peach Bowl. And finally, No. 2 Michigan would have played the Alabama–USC winner in the Rose Bowl.

That field would have been fun to watch. Bill Hancock also confirmed the first-round CFP games that begin in 2024 will have one game on Friday and three on Saturday. Semifinal games will be held during the week to avoid going head-to-head with the NFL playoffs.

The 12-team playoffs can’t get here fast enough.

Florida State-Georgia Tech to kickoff 2024 season in Ireland

Another matchup set to kick off in Ireland.

The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and Florida State Seminoles will begin their 2024 season in Ireland, both programs announced on Wednesday morning. 

It will be the ninth-ever game to be played in Ireland and the fifth at Aviva Stadium. Last season, the stadium hosted the Aer Lingus College Football Classic, a game that saw Northwestern defeat Nebraska 31-28 on August 27.

The first-ever game in Ireland was played in 1988 between Boston College and Army, a 38-24 win over the Eagles. Games were also played in 1989 between No.24 Pittsburgh and Rutgers as well as in 1997 between No. 19 Notre Dame and Navy before not coming back until 2012 when Notre Dame and Navy had a rematch at the first game at Aviva Stadium, a 50-10 win for the Fighting Irish.

Penn State and UCF would play as part of the Croke Park Classic in 2014, a 26-24 win for the Nittany Lions while in 2016 Georgia Tech defeated Boston College 17-14 in the first Aer Lingus College Football Classic.

This upcoming fall, Aviva Stadium will host Notre Dame and Navy for their third matchup in Ireland on August 26 as part of the Aer Lingus College Football Classic. While there have only been eight games over thirty years in Ireland, it often has been highly successful, drawing 38,000+ fans in seven of eight games including in each of the five games. While a large portion of those in attendance has been fans of the teams participating, many are also Irish nationals.

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Report: LSU’s 2024 matchup with UCLA gets moved in light of USC game being added

A report from Sports Illustrated indicates the 2024 UCLA-LSU game will be moved to late September.

The LSU Tigers were originally set to open the 2024 campaign in the same way that they will open in 2021. However, in 2024 it was going to be UCLA visiting Death Valley on Aug. 31. In light of the USC-LSU game set for the opener of that season, plans have changed.

According to Sports Illustrated’s UCLA site, the Bruins-Tigers showdown has been moved to Sept. 21.

The game between the Tigers and Trojans was pegged for Aug. 31, 2024 – the same exact date UCLA was supposed to travel to Baton Rouge and play LSU to kick off their season. The Bruins’ matchup with the Tigers was announced all the way back on March 31, 2014, as part of a home-and-home and there had been no announcements suggesting it had moved or been pulled by either team.

All Bruins has confirmed with a UCLA Athletics spokesperson that the game has officially been moved to Sept. 21, 2024. The spokesperson did not disclose the timeline of the decision.

This is how the 2024 nonconference schedule shakes out after moving UCLA to later into September.

  • Aug. 31 vs USC in Las Vegas
  • Sept. 7 vs Rice in Baton Rouge
  • Sept. 21 vs UCLA in Baton Rouge
  • Sept. 28 vs South Alabama in Baton Rouge

This would leave the Sept. 14 date open for the first SEC game of the season or a very early bye week. The interesting dynamic would be if the Oklahoma Sooners and Texas Longhorns would be in the conference by 2024. This could likely mean the nonconference schedule gets decreased to just three games.

This could mean that either Rice or South Alabama might come off the schedule or they look to move a game to a future date.