SEC making alternative plans to keep key rivalries in an 8-game schedule

DESTIN, Fla. — The assumption has long been that several key rivalries — such as Auburn-Georgia, Alabama-Tennessee and Texas-Texas A&M — were doomed as annual games if the SEC stuck with an eight-game schedule. There may be another option, as it turns out.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said Tuesday the conference could make an effort to preserve certain games if it sticks with an eight-game schedule.

“We’re attentive to real key rivalries and have models that can accommodate them that have been shared and will continue to be shared,” Sankey said.

Sankey did not go into specifics and said the alternative format has existed. But that runs contrary to what conference officials and athletic directors have said over the past few years. There have been two formats under consideration:

A nine-game schedule, where each team has three annual opponents, then rotates everyone else so every team plays each other at least twice every four years.
An eight-game schedule, where each team has one annual opponent, then rotates everyone else so they also play everyone at least twice every four years.

Major rivalries would be played every year, including Florida-Georgia, Oklahoma-Texas, Alabama-Auburn and Ole Miss-Mississippi State. But so-called secondary rivalries would only be played twice every four years.

For the first time, however, Sankey is leaving it open to incorporating certain games.

“We have a variety of alternatives, an alternative we presented is to protect those in an eight-game schedule moving forward,” Sankey said. “The conversation about annual games that need to be played has been a focus since August of ’21, when he had our first gathering of athletic directors and talked about what the schedule might look like.”

The benefit of keeping those games is obvious: It keeps traditions going, and these are games that receive strong television ratings. The cost of it would be a slightly more complicated format, where some teams would only play each other twice every five years.

“That’s an impact,” Sankey said. “And that’s one of the discussions the membership will have, has had.”

Sankey’s new stance could be read in a couple of ways.

The most obvious is that Sankey, who favors a nine-game schedule, now believes his schools will vote for a permanent eight-game schedule and he wants to make sure those key games are played.

The other possibility is that this is leverage for negotiations over the next College Football Playoff format. Many SEC athletic directors are pushing, along with the Big Ten, for the two conferences to each receive four automatic bids. That certainty would make SEC schools more comfortable going to nine games. Not getting the automatic bids would make them more likely to stick with eight games.

“I personally, if we can get where we can on the Playoff, think nine games makes sense. But it doesn’t make sense if we’re not protected,” Texas A&M athletic director Trev Alberts said.

Thus, the long-awaited nine-game schedule seems to depend on the next CFP format and whether the SEC is protected with automatic bids. The chances for that seem murky, so now Sankey, seeking to keep those key rivalries, is keeping his options open.

(Photo: Tim Warner / Getty Images)