Years of debate, all to be settled by an out-of-the-blue announcement on a Thursday afternoon.
The Southeastern Conference will move to a nine-game conference football schedule starting with the 2026 season, the league announced, putting it on par with the Big Ten and Big 12 in terms of league games per season and potentially easing a path toward another expansion of the College Football Playoff.
The change was approved by conference presidents and chancellors Thursday. It previously had been recommended by league athletic directors.
“Adding a ninth SEC game underscores our universities’ commitment to delivering the most competitive football schedule in the nation,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said. “This format protects rivalries, increases competitive balance, and paired with our requirement to play an additional Power opponent, ensures SEC teams are well prepared to compete and succeed in the College Football Playoff.”
The SEC has played eight conference games each season since 1992, when the league expanded to 12 teams with the addition of Arkansas and South Carolina. The Atlantic Coast Conference still plays eight league games. The Big 12 and the Big Ten already play nine.
Getting to nine should improve strength of schedule arguments for the SEC moving forward, even though the conference has said for years its eight-game slate is more daunting than other leagues’ nine games. The change came one day after the CFP selection committee said it will place more emphasis on strength of schedule when determining which teams make the 12-team field.
The committee said the schedule-strength metric has been adjusted to apply greater weight to games against strong opponents. An additional metric, record strength, has been added to go beyond a team’s schedule strength to assess how a team performed against that schedule.
Despite the change, the SEC will continue with a single-standings, non-divisional structure.
In addition to the nine conference games, SEC teams still must schedule at least one “high-quality” nonconference game against another power conference program. That can be against teams from the Big Ten, ACC, Big 12 or Notre Dame.
The league will determine three “annual opponents” for each school, which will remain permanent fixtures on the schedule. The other six games will rotate through the rest of the conference. Each team will face every other program at least once every two years and every opponent home and away within four years.
“The SEC has established itself as the leader in delivering the most compelling football schedule in college athletics,” Sankey said. “Fans will see traditional rivalries preserved, new matchups more frequently and a level of competition unmatched across the nation.”
So, what does this mean for Missouri?
Two schools feel like locks to be among the Tigers’ permanent opponents: Arkansas and Oklahoma, which are the annual opponents in basketball.
The Razorbacks have been presented as Mizzou’s in-conference rival, so the yearly fight for the Battle Line Trophy is unlikely to go away anytime soon. The Tigers and Sooners go back to the Big 8 Conference, so it would be natural to continue that matchup moving forward.
The third annual opponent spot could go a few ways. Vanderbilt would be the closest geographical option. That’s a favorable matchup for MU more often than not. The more entertaining option would be South Carolina, with Mayor’s Cup fixtures between the Tigers and Gamecocks often turning into competitive games.
Further down the road, the SEC’s shift to a nine-game schedule will mean Mizzou has to trim down some of its future nonconference slates.
MU is already set for 2026, having postponed the resumption of its series with Illinois until 2027. Next season, the Tigers will host Arkansas-Pine Bluff and Troy and face Kansas on the road for the nonconference slate.
In 2027, Mizzou is scheduled to host Illinois State, Illinois and Florida Atlantic, with a road game against San Diego State on the books. The latter seems the most likely to go, but the Aztecs are on the 2028 home schedule, too.
Mizzou is set for quite some time with its power conference opponents. The Tigers face Kansas in 2026, 2031 and 2032. The Illinois matchups are set for 2027, 2028, 2029, 2033, 2034 and 2035. Mizzou has a home-and-home series against Colorado in 2030 and 2031, plus BYU on the books for 2035.
That will ease some of the administrative burden of adapting to the SEC’s scheduling change.
The shift could also lead to the Big Ten agreeing to adopt a CFP format that maximizes the number of at-large bids as opposed to guaranteed spots for each conference, but that’s yet another ongoing debate.
