The Southeastern Conference announced its 2026–29 football scheduling format, revealing a nine-game league slate with three annual rivals and six rotating opponents designed to maximize both tradition and balance in the expanded 16-team conference.
SEC Adopts Most Balanced Schedule Format
Beginning in 2026, the SEC will forgo divisions and move to a single-standings model, requiring each program to play nine conference games, including three annual opponents to protect classic rivalries such as the Iron Bowl, Egg Bowl, Red River and Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry. The remaining six games will rotate, ensuring every SEC team faces every other conference team at least once every two years, and at home and away within four years.
Rotational Equity, CFP Impact
League officials emphasized competitive fairness, noting that the difference between the highest and lowest average opponent win percentage over the four-year cycle is only 9.02%—down from more than 21% under the previous divisional setup. The schedule overhaul aims to improve strength-of-schedule metrics valued by the College Football Playoff committee, with every school also required to add at least one major non-conference matchup from the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, or Notre Dame each season.
Rivalries and Scheduling Priorities
Annual opponents, chosen to maintain tradition and regional matchups, feature 10 series played more than 100 times in conference history. The average distance between annual opponents is just 281 miles, and 80% of matchups are in the same or bordering states. After each four-year rotation, scheduling will be reviewed for competitive balance.
Home/Away Distribution
With nine conference games, each team will alternate between five and four home SEC contests per season, while committed neutral site matchups like Florida–Georgia and Oklahoma–Texas persist in Jacksonville/Dallas. The setup guarantees each team seven home games per season if three non-conference games are scheduled at home.
Team-by-Team, Year-by-Year Opponents
Detailed opponent grids for each program from 2026 to 2029 show annual rivals and scheduled rotations, providing clarity on rivalry weeks and marquee cross-divisional matchups like Alabama–Auburn, Ole Miss–Mississippi State, and Oklahoma–Texas.
Complete team-by-team and year-by-year schedules, as well as a primer on scheduling priorities, are available at SECsports.com. Dates for 2026 matchups will be released in December.