The SEC’s move to a nine-game conference schedule was supposed to showcase more marquee matchups. Instead, it appears the Big 12 is once again paying the price.
According to On3, LSU has canceled its scheduled home-and-home football series with Arizona State that was set for the 2029 and 2030 seasons. The Tigers were slated to travel to Tempe in 2029 before hosting the Sun Devils in Baton Rouge the following year.
While LSU has not publicly detailed its reasoning, the timing is notable. The SEC is preparing to expand to a nine-game league schedule beginning in 2026, leaving schools with fewer opportunities to schedule quality non-conference opponents. And the report comes on the same day the SEC is in a full-blown propaganda push to justify its move to nine league games as one that should only credit the conference and not dock it.
SEC’s Push
The conference has repeatedly heard SEC leaders tout the benefits of playing nine league games while simultaneously watching attractive Power Four matchups disappear from future schedules. Arizona State, a program coming off a Big 12 Championship Game appearance in 2024, represented exactly the type of inter-conference matchup college football fans want to see.
Instead, another potential SEC-Big 12 showdown is off the calendar.
The irony is difficult to ignore. Throughout SEC Media Days, conference officials and television personalities have argued that adding a ninth conference game should be viewed as a positive by the College Football Playoff selection committee. At the same time, one consequence of the expanded league slate is fewer opportunities for SEC schools to challenge themselves against quality opponents from conferences like the Big 12.
There’s no rule requiring LSU—or any SEC school—to keep these games on the schedule. But when the conference argues it deserves extra credit for a tougher league schedule while simultaneously reducing marquee non-conference games, it’s fair to ask whether college football fans are getting the best product.
Lane Kiffin has long been a critic of the SEC going to nine league games, and now the head coach has made his first big non-conference scheduling move, and this one happens to impact the Big 12 Conference.
