SEC announces new scheduling format for 2024 football season

The SEC spring meetings wrapped up in Destin, Florida on Thursday with a long-awaited scheduling resolution.

After nearly two years of debate in anticipation of Texas and Oklahoma joining the league, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey announced that the conference will move to an eight-game format with a required additional non-conference game against a team from the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 or a major independent beginning in 2024.

A nine-game format with three permanent rivals and six rotating games was the other option.

The current format includes six games against division opponents two cross-division games, but once the league expands to 16 teams with Texas and Oklahoma, the conference will do away with divisions.

“There are so many things that everybody is trying to balance," Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel said at SEC spring meetings this week. "From schedules that are already preset to how we navigate that space. At the end of the day, in this conference, you come to this conference because you want to compete and play against the best every Saturday. You love those big games. Certainly when you’re playing a conference opponent, you’re playing that type of game.”

The choice between a eight-game or nine-game format was key topic at spring meetings in 2022 but nothing was decided. Reports earlier this week indicated that the most likely decision would be eight games, though it could possibly be a temporary solution.

The contract between ESPN and the SEC, which will give the network exclusive TV rights to conference games and will go into effect beginning in 2024, did not add revenue for a ninth game.

That deal could be restructured in the future, paving the way for the SEC to change its format to nine games once the format is reevaluated in 2025.

For now, some of Tennessee's more traditional rivals may not be a mainstay on the annual schedule, including Alabama, Florida and Georgia.

“I want to play the best games that we possibly can every single year," Heupel said. "The biggest and best brands.”

The 2024 schedule will be announced during a primetime show on June 14.

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