Tag: SEC expansion

Texas at Michigan named biggest non-conference game of 2024 by USA TODAY Sports

USA Today declares Texas Longhorns at Michigan Wolverines ‘the biggest non-conference game’ of 2024 in new Top 10 list.

As a new member of the SEC, the Texas Longhorns will have a lot of big conference games this year. The Horns will take on old rival No. 16 Oklahoma and host No. 1 Georgia in October. Texas will host Florida and renew rivalries with Arkansas and Texas A&M in November. 

But before the Longhorns even start their SEC schedule, they must first travel to Ann Arbor for a huge matchup vs. Michigan. Texas fans have had the game circled on the calendar for years. The anticipation has only increased with the Wolverines as defending national champion and the game coinciding with the year Texas joins the SEC. 

Now, in a new list of the Top 10 best non-conference games of the year, USA TODAY Sports, has declared Texas at Michigan the biggest of the year. The two programs last met in the 2005 Rose Bowl. 

Texas played in arguably the biggest non-conference game last year, when the Longhorns beat Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Texas carried that momentum all the way to the college football playoff. 

Non-conference games might lose a little impact with the playoff expanding to 12 teams. There will definitely be more wiggle room. But that also should make big, early season non-conference games more prevalent. 

USA Today says the impact of the Texas-Michigan game could be far reaching. 

September 7: Texas Longhorns at Michigan Wolverines

This is the biggest non-conference game of the year. Even if Michigan takes a step back as expected, the defending national champions could upend the early playoff chase by handing Texas a road loss. The fallout from a Michigan win would impact the perception of the SEC and Big Ten, a big deal given that both leagues will have multiple teams in the mix for at-large playoff bids. While the loser wouldn’t be eliminated from the mix by any means, the winner will have a huge tiebreaker to show the selection committee in early December.

Six of the Top 10 non-conference games involve SEC teams:

August 31: Clemson Tigers vs. Georgia Bulldogs (in Atlanta)

August 31: Notre Dame Fighting Irish at Texas A&M Aggies

September 1: USC Trojans vs. LSU Tigers (in Las Vegas)

September 7: Texas Longhorns at Michigan Wolverines

September 7: Tennessee Volunteers at NC State Wolfpack

September 14: Alabama Crimson Tide at Wisconsin Badgers

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How could the SEC align its permanent rivals with the additions of Oklahoma and Texas?

If it went to a nine-game conference schedule, how could the permanent rivals line up for an expanded SEC.

The SEC is dealing with one of those good problems. As the conference prepares to expand to 16 schools with the addition of Oklahoma and Texas, SEC leadership is debating how to construct its schedule. In 2024 and most likely in 2025, the SEC will play eight conference games as they work out the details for what could come down the road.

Despite settling on eight games in the short term, the format that has received the most buzz has each team facing three permanent rivals each season as part of the nine-game conference schedule. The other six games would come from a rotation featuring the remaining 12 teams in the conference.

While there are some obvious permanent rivals for some teams, others aren’t so clear. It’s not an easy proposition, but it’s the one that would have each SEC team playing each other every two years.

This scheduling model is attractive because it sets up a school to play every other SEC program over a two-year cycle, with both home and away games against every other school over a four-year cycle. Year 1 will have a team’s three annual rivals plus six other SEC opponents. Those six are then rotated out for the rest of the conference in Year 2, allowing for games against all 15 conference foes. – Chip Patterson, CBS Sports

So, over a two-year span, Oklahoma will face every team in the conference. Over a four-year span, they will have hosted every team in the conference.

One of the complaints with the current format is the reality that an SEC may not play host to another for more than a decade. For example, Texas A&M hasn’t hosted Georgia despite being in the same conference for 10 seasons and only played the Bulldogs once in that time frame. The format getting the most consideration would fix that.

Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte spoke at a Longhorns town hall about the future of the SEC schedule. Del Conte mentioned that it’s a work in progress, but by 2026, the SEC could be at a nine-game conference schedule.

No format will leave everyone happy, but here’s a take on how the permanent rivals could align in the expanded SEC.

LSU is a winner from the SEC 2024 schedule release, per On3

The Tigers could be poised to benefit from the end of the division structure.

The Tigers learned which teams they will face when divisions are eliminated and the SEC expands to 16 teams with the addition of Oklahoma and Texas in 2024.

Many of LSU’s SEC rivalries will be preserved for at least one more year. The schedule includes games against Alabama, Florida, Ole Miss, Arkansas and Texas A&M in addition to a contest against the newcomer Sooners at Tiger Stadium.

Not all of LSU’s historic rivalries were protected, and it will be strange for the Tigers to not face either Auburn or Mississippi State in 2024.

Still, as far as a conference schedule in a loaded league goes, LSU’s could be a lot worse. On3’s Jesse Simonton classified the Tigers as winners from the SEC schedule release and said that if coach [autotag]Brian Kelly[/autotag] can’t lead the team to the College Football Playoff in 2023, he’ll have a good shot in 2024.

The 2024 season is still far away, and in the age of significant college football roster flux, it’s hard to project who will be good and who won’t be more than a year in advance.

If Kelly continues to build at LSU, this could be a team poised to take advantage of the end of the East-West dichotomy.

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5 takeaways from LSU’s 2024 SEC opponent reveal

Here are some thoughts about the teams LSU will face when the league expands in 2024.

The SEC released its 2024 matchups on Wednesday evening.

The conference will be different with Texas and Oklahoma joining the fold. Part of that change includes scheduling. Long term, we still don’t exactly know the SEC’s scheduling plan.

The conference is sticking with eight games for now, but many still expect a move to nine.

What we do know is who LSU is playing in 2024 and where those games will be played. LSU will see plenty of familiar faces but with some significant changes, too.

Here are some takeaways from LSU’s 2024 SEC schedule.

Every SEC opponent LSU will face following league expansion in 2024

The 2024 season will be the first after Oklahoma and Texas join — as well as the first without divisions.

The SEC announced the full slate of conference matchups for the 2024 season on Wednesday night during a special on the SEC Network.

The 2024 season will be the first without divisions as Oklahoma and Texas are set to join the league. What that format looks like beyond 2024 remains unclear, but for the time being, the conference schedule will remain at eight games.

LSU’s schedule is headlined by a home game against OU, and it preserved many of the team’s bigger conference rivalries: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Ole Miss and Texas A&M.

The schedule attempted to preserve historic rivalries, and it guaranteed no team would have to play on the road against the same team in 2023 and 2024. It also ensured each team would face either the Sooners or Longhorns.

We’ll have to learn the dates for all these matchups, but here’s the full list of conference opponents the Tigers will face in 2024.

Report: SEC decides on 8-game conference schedule

The long-awaited debate is over, the SEC moves forward with an eight-game conference schedule upon additions of Oklahoma and Texas.

The long-awaited answer to the question of how the 16-team SEC schedule will look in 2024 has arrived. Greg Sankey announced the league will stay with an eight-game conference schedule when Oklahoma and Texas make the move.

Meeting in Destin, Fla. for the annual SEC spring meetings, SEC leadership has been debating a league schedule of eight or nine games. For years, the SEC has played just eight conference games, even as fellow Power Five leagues moved to nine-game schedules.

According to Chuck Dunlap, SEC communications director, SEC members will be required to play their eight conference opponents and at least one Power Five or major independent opponent.

Each team will play one permanent SEC opponent and then rotate the other seven league games. For the Oklahoma Sooners, they’ll face the Texas Longhorns each season. That’s a rivalry too valuable for the league to not have them meet each season in the Cotton Bowl.

In addition to the eight-game proclamation from SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, the league will also remove divisions upon expansion. Similar to what the Big 12 will look like in 2023.

No divisions has the league in a situation where each SEC team will play everyone else at least twice in a four-year period.

While the nine-game schedule with three permanent opponents was a popular choice among fans and in some SEC circles, the league couldn’t gain a consensus.

As things stand right now, the Oklahoma Sooners only have two nonconference games scheduled for 2024, hosting the Temple Owls and Tulane Green Wave. The Sooners already replaced their 2023 game against Georgia with the SMU Mustangs, but athletic director Joe Castiglione will have to get busy filling out the Sooners’ schedule for the 2024 season with two holes on the slate.

A popular choice would be to renew Bedlam in 2024, but Oklahoma State already has three nonconference games on the schedule. So unless there was a cancellation, that would be unlikely.

Still, in the constantly moving world of college football, what seems certain today is subject to change tomorrow. Still, with uncertainty about the nonconference schedule, there’s growing excitement about the future.

Oklahoma fans and the program will be waiting with bated breath to find out which SEC cities the Sooners will be visiting in their first season in their new conference. The SEC will announce each team’s schedule during a primetime show on the SEC Network on June 14.

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Latest updates on future SEC scheduling saga

Sankey said discussions continue to progress but no decision has yet been made.

As SEC spring meetings in Destin, Florida, continue this week, much of the discussion seems to be centered around hammering out a future scheduling model for when Oklahoma and Texas join the league in 2024.

Some — including commissioner Greg Sankey, it seems — are pushing for an expansion of the conference schedule from eight games to nine, a move several other conferences have already made.

There’s been pushback on that change, though, and it seems no decision has been made yet. On Wednesday, Sankey said those conversations are continuing. He said that if he, the presidents and the athletics directors can reach a “finish line” he’s prepared to announce and explain the decision this week.

“We’ll continue the conversation tomorrow with most of our athletics directors and our presidents,” Sankey said, per On3’s Kaiden Smith. “If we coalesce around a recommendation, we’re prepared to introduce that. As soon as we reach a finish line, I’ll end up announcing, explaining that in a pretty timely manner. Thursday or Friday, you know, sooner the better.

“If we don’t come to an agreement, a conclusion either on short term or long term — and we have options. We don’t have to solve every one of our scheduling format questions for eternity right now. And remember that really in February, we learned of the ability for Oklahoma and Texas to move earlier. I’ve noted some complexities around that, certainly just walking away from 14 nonconference games, or we can go to nine. So that’s part of the conversation. A lot of healthy dialogue. I tend to think we’ll come to resolution on some key elements in the short term, continue talking long term.”

If the league opts to move to nine games, the schedule would likely feature three permanent opponents with the other six rotating. However, an eight-game model would likely on feature one permanent opponent.

In LSU’s case, we may have a decent idea who that opponent would be after Texas A&M athletics director Ross Bjork seemed to have let it slip this week.

For Sankey’s part, he still seems to think the discussions are progressing in a positive direction.

“I will say from my perspective, it’s been the kind of healthy conversation we ought to have as a conference. Lot of different perspectives. No need to raise the volume but continually, you know, ask the right questions and think about how we schedule our football games,” he said. “Also, how we announce the scheduling of our football games. You saw the NFL just three weeks ago, they make it an event. And last year we announced our schedule in mid-September. We’re already making news in football but a lot of pressure to get it out. So we’re trying to reconfigure that.”

It seems the league is still working through different scheduling possibilities, but it’s possible that LSU and the rest of the SEC members will have a better idea of what future scheduling will look like by the end of the week.

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SEC commissioner Greg Sankey says new schedule plans ‘could be’ decided at spring meetings

Perhaps we may have some more clarity on the future scheduling format by the end of the week.

When the SEC stakeholders get together in Destin, Florida, for the league’s annual spring meetings, one of the hottest topics of conversation will be the league’s scheduling format.

The conference is set to add Oklahoma and Texas to its ranks in 2024, and that will alter its structure considerably. It will almost certainly mean the end of the current division setup and scheduling format, opening the opportunity for the SEC to move from an eight to a nine-game conference slate.

Though SEC commissioner Greg Sankey was hesitant to make any promises, he said a decision could be reached in Destin this week, according to On3’s Sam Gillenwater.

“(It) could be. We’re poised. Last year, I said we were poised to make a decision and then we did not,” Sankey said. “We’ve got an early entry date now for Oklahoma and Texas; so that creates some adjustments. (We’re) also thinking about the expansion of the College Football Playoff. Non-conference scheduling (is) in there, how we smooth the entry from repeat site type games. So there’s a lot to talk through.”

“Yeah, we could make a decision,” added Sankey. “And we’ll keep the ratings high and say stay tuned to the Finebaum Show everyday.”

Only time will tell which model the league ultimately chooses to go with, though it will likely be some sort of pod-based system. Perhaps we may have some more clarity by the end of the week.

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HOT & COLD: Which disgruntled ACC programs should the SEC look to add?

If the ‘Magnificent Seven’ get their way and disband from the ACC, which programs should the SEC extend an invite to?

Once the conference realignment movement got started, it was clear that the ship had sailed and was not docking anywhere anytime soon. As the 2023 season approaches, fans will get a glimpse at the start of realignment in action as the Big 12 will add four new programs.

In 2024, the SEC will add Oklahoma and Texas, and the Big Ten will add USC and UCLA.

The ACC, amid all of the chaos, remained relatively quiet. Until now.

Recent reports reveal that seven ACC programs, known as ‘the magnificent seven,’ have sought legal guidance in potentially getting out of the conference’s grant-of-rights. The current deal with the ACC runs through 2036. However, with nearly half of the programs in the conference seeking a way out, it could be a lot sooner than that.

Below, we take a look at if the SEC should be hot or cold on these seven programs that want out of the ACC.

Iron Bowl unlikely to be affected by SEC expansion

The addition of Oklahoma and Texas could affect several rivalry games across the SEC, but the Iron Bowl isn’t going anywhere.

The landscape of the Southeastern Conference is changing. The Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners are joining the SEC, bringing its team count to 16. This means some changes will be made to the schedule.

A Tuscaloosa News article written by Chase Goodbread listed the nine rivalries that are safest from disruption when the SEC changes its schedule format in 2024. The Iron Bowl was marked as the safest.

“If ice melted under the feet of every other matchup in the league, the Iron Bowl would be the last one standing. The phrase “cold day in Hell” comes to mind.”

The other rivalries listed included Texas/Oklahoma, Florida/Georgia, Alabama/Tennessee, Texas/Texas A&M, Auburn/Georgia, Alabama/LSU, Ole Miss/Mississippi State, and Tennessee/Vanderbilt.

Rivalries are part of what makes football in the SEC so special, so it is nice to know that most of the favorites will not be going anywhere as the SEC transitions into a new era.

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