Nearing the end of its annual SEC Spring Meetings this week in the Florida panhandle, the conference's leadership Thursday disclosed the league's roadmap for the near future on the football field.
The SEC, per commissioner Greg Sankey, is sticking to an eight-game league schedule upon the arrivals of both Oklahoma and Texas in 2024.
The soon-to-be-16-team super-league has operated with an eight-game conference slate since the league's initial major expansion added both Arkansas and South Carolina prior to the 1992 football season.
The SEC also announced, via Sankey, that all of its members beginning in 2024 will be required to play an additional Power-5 team from one of the sport's current major conferences -- Atlantic Coast, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 -- or a "major independent" program.
With BYU joining the Big 12 Conference this fall, Notre Dame is virtually the only "major independent" program left in college football. The Irish do have future contests scheduled with Alabama and Texas A&M, among others.
In announcing the move late Thursday afternoon, Sankey said the SEC will prioritize in its new-old scheduling model both competitive "fairness" and preservation of traditional rivalries.
Still, numerous teams will be unable to keep their traditional rivals; yet others, such as Texas and Texas A&M, now poised to be back together as conference brethren, will be unable to resume their annual rivalry as both sides had indicated they preferred.
Sources told FootballScoop that money -- or the potential lack thereof -- continued to factor heavily into the SEC's decision-making process this week for the new schedule.
Just announced via @GregSankey in Destin, SEC teams will play eight conference games plus one required opponent from the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 or major independent during the 2024 season when the University of Oklahoma and the University of Texas join the league.
— Chuck Dunlap 🏈 (@SEC_Chuck) June 1, 2023
Sankey himself touted the SEC's 2020 season, during which its members competed in a conference-only slate due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, the SEC renegotiated its broadcasting-rights deals since that time -- this season is the powerhouse conference's final year under its expiring exclusive-rights package with CBS -- and, industry insiders noted, watched the Big Ten land what many believe is college football's preeminent arrangement.
The Big Ten is going to have its games broadcast across multiple networks more in line with the NFL's model; CBS, Fox and NBC are among the networks that are poised to have the ability to showcase Big Ten football.