SEC football schedule: Projecting permanent rivals for each team when Texas, Oklahoma join in 2024 season

Now that we know Texas and Oklahoma will leave the Big 12 and join the SEC in 2024, not 2025 as it was originally announced, the issue of determining the league’s football schedule has become a bit more pressing. The SEC has been mulling different models ever since the move — which kicked off this most recent wave of conference realignment — was first announced in July of 2021. Commissioner Greg Sankey and the league office have been waiting to finalize the schedule, however, until after the conclusion of the Big 12’s negotiations with Texas and Oklahoma. 

How the league will approach its football schedule is expected to be one of the most pivotal issues at the conference’s upcoming spring meetings. Just don’t expect college football fans to wait until then to start imagining an SEC schedule with a whopping 16 teams, now featuring two of the sport’s iconic programs. 

During Monday’s episode of the Cover 3 Podcast, we put ourselves in the board room of the SEC league office to determine the perfect conference schedule with Texas and Oklahoma in the fold. Before we could start pairing permanent partners, we had to start with some ground rules — or, at least, agree upon the general scheduling format: 

• No divisions 
• 9-game conference schedule 
• 3-6 scheduling model with three annual rivals 

It’s important to note the distinction between having three annual rivals and a pod; it’s widely believed the SEC is not interested in a true pod format in which every team in the pod plays each other, similar to a division. 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. 

Long droughts between cross-division opponents who aren’t annual rivals are a common complaint of the division format. Alabama and Georgia, for example, have played just two regular-season, on-campus games in the last 15 years. This model eliminates that issue, but comes with the cost of an additional conference game. The SEC has held on to its eight-game schedule as the Big Ten, Pac-12 and Big 12 have all moved to nine conference games, but creating more connection…