Now that Texas and Oklahoma are joining the SEC next season and divisions are being done away with, the league has to make a choice: keep the current 8-game schedule and lose many rivalry games each year, or switch to a 9-game schedule and keep all the important rivalries but make sure eight SEC teams lose one more game each season.
So far, the league has put off making a choice. This summer, they announced an 8-game schedule for the 2024 season. A final decision will be made sometime between now and August 30, 2025, for 2025 and beyond.
Based on what Nick Saban said, it looks like the SEC is moving toward making the wrong choice—at least when it comes to putting on as many exciting games as possible.
Now, Saban made the comment almost an hour into his weekly coaches show. It was in answer to a question that had nothing to do with how the SEC will schedule games in the future. Dusty Dvoracek, an ESPN expert and former Oklahoma defensive tackle, asked Saban what he thought about the Red River foes joining. Saban praised how the SEC has grown by adding good schools without moving its geographical boundaries.
Then he said: “The way we’re going to do our 7-team, 1-team fixed, you’re going to play everybody every four years, so almost every guy at your school is going to get to play every team in your conference.”
To say it again, this is not even close to official proof. But the fact that Saban talks in a matter-of-fact way and is likely to be kept up to date on league discussions shows that the SEC is moving toward a 1-7 format instead of a 3-6 format.
If the schedule was 1-7, these battles would not happen every year:
Alabama – Tennessee
Florida – Tennessee
Auburn – Georgia
LSU – Ole Miss
Texas – A&M University
Texas – Arkansas
It’s funny, because keeping the ties between Auburn and Georgia and Alabama and Tennessee alive was a big reason why the SEC played a 6-1-1 schedule from 2012 to this season (six divisional games, one fixed inter-division game, and one annual inter-division game). Because of this setup, it’s amazing that Georgia will visit Texas (which will join the SEC in 2024) before it visits Texas A&M, even though the Aggies joined the SEC in 2012.
Also, each SEC team would still play all 15 of the other teams at least once every four years in a 3-6 system.
It looks like money is at the heart of the problem.
Some people in the SEC have said that if they went from an eight-game schedule to a nine-game schedule, they should be paid more because they think it would be better for ESPN, the conference’s TV partner. So far, ESPN hasn’t said that it will pay for more SEC games.
I might be saying more than Commissioner Sankey wants me to, but it’s clear that if you switch to a nine-game schedule, you need to be paid for it, Georgia President Jere Morehead said in May. There are still some things that need to work out with our media partners.
Sankey has played down the difference in money between eight and nine games. Around the same time, he said, “Money will follow.” “It doesn’t lead.” Additionally, Saban has generally supported a nine-game schedule, but has voiced concerns that Alabama’s three suggested constant rivals—Auburn, LSU, and Tennessee—are too hard.
It looks like Saban’s complaints were heard based on what he said Thursday night.
