Ever since Texas and Oklahoma announced they were joining the SEC in 2021, everyone and their grandmother has had an opinion about how the new 16-team conference should be structured schedule-wise. When the SEC announced the 2024 schedule last year it appeared clear at the time that the 2024 season would be a transition year to onboard the new teams. Keeping the conference schedule at eight games while eliminating divisions seemed like a temporary stopgap while the powers-that-be in Birmingham and Bristol determined a more effective (and equitable) scheduling system.
Fast forward a year and the conference has announced the 2025 iteration of the schedule before the 2024 version has been performed. An announcement that lands... flaccidly. Let’s take a look at how the schedule lays out for Mizzou. First, we have the non-conference games, which have been scheduled for years. There’s nothing new here, but we do get to start the season at home against kansas, which should be pretty great.
Sept. 6: kansas
Sept. 13: @Miami (Ohio)
Oct. 4: Louisiana
Oct. 18: UMass
Next comes the new part, which if you’ve been paying attention to the 2024 schedule, looks remarkably similar:
Alabama
Mississippi St.
South Carolina
Texas A&M
@Oklahoma
@Vanderbilt
@Arkansas
@Auburn
Dates for the 2025 conference games have yet to be announced, though we can be pretty confident the Arkansas game will remain on Thanksgiving weekend. By just flipping the 2024 schedule home and away, it’s clear the SEC simply punted (at least for another year) on advancing the conference in any way. Under ordinary circ*mstances, this strategy would be defensible as an equitable way to make sure teams get return home games for the road games they will play in 2024. Current times are anything but ordinary.
With the SEC (and college sports as a whole) in such a period of transition, sticking with the same old, same old comes off as uninspired at best and cowardly at worst. No legitimate reason exists why the conference shouldn’t play nine conference games a year, with three of those games against permanent opponents. This would allow every team to play home and away versus every other team every four years.
The entire point of a conference is to compete against the other teams in the conference. Texas A&M has been in the SEC for 12 years and Georgia still hasn’t made a trip to College Station (and they won’t for at least two more years.) That isn’t a conference, it’s a loose association with similar interests. Ultimately, by dropping this dull schedule the SEC is trying to have it’s cake and eat it too.
Mixed Messages
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In recent discussions regarding further playoff expansion, the SEC and Big 10 have shamelessly pushed for multiple automatic qualifiers for each of the two power conferences. The primary argument both conferences are making is that they feature the best teams and thus the toughest paths to make the playoffs. While the Big 10 has a little more leg to stand on based on their nine-game conference schedule, the SEC is still sticking with an eight-game slate.
No one can reasonably argue that the SEC isn’t the toughest conference in the country. However, Greg Sankey (and SEC coaches and ADs) chose to keep the schedule at eight games to counteract that difficulty. This is while also demanding playoff concessions from the other conferences (some of whom have nine game schedules.) The SEC’s argument? You guessed it: the toughness of the SEC. That’s called talking out of both sides of your mouth. The SEC is trying to play a shorter schedule and yet also demand an easier path to multiple playoff bids. If that appears cowardly to you, then you are starting to see the full picture.
Despite all the whining about tough schedules, the biggest reason the SEC has kept the status quo schedule-wise for 2025 is they have yet to reach a deal with ESPN to increase payouts for an extra conference game. Everything in college sports comes down to money and the SEC sees no reason to make their lives more difficult without reaping some kind of monetary award. This is a perfectly logical approach to take when your goal is to maximize revenue in every way. However, the frustration of many fans comes when the conference makes one argument (tough conference) to cover up for the fact that the whole thing is one big money grab for the power brokers. The powers-that-be insist on peeing on us and telling us it’s raining.
Mizzou in 2025
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This is a Mizzou site, so now that my rant is over, let’s look at what this schedule means for Mizzou. One of the biggest reasons fans and pundits alike are so high on the 2024 version of the Tigers is the remarkably easy schedule considering the conference. The positive side to this boring schedule flip is that Mizzou gets off easy once again in 2025.
“Easy,” of course, is relative. The Tigers have to make trips to Norman and Auburn and have to host Alabama, which for any non-SEC team would be an incredibly difficult slate. But with Brady Cook and his host of experienced wide receivers departing after 2024, Eli Drinkwitz couldn’t have drawn up a better way to “ease” his new quarterback (Drew Pyne?) into the starting role. While it’s too early to make 2025 predictions with any confidence, and assuming a successful 2024 campaign, this schedule would set up for Mizzou to get playoff projections once again next year.
However, turnabout is fair play and in the case of Mizzou, 2026 might not be as kind. No one knows what the 2026 schedule will look like, but if the SEC maintains the same eight-game set-up, the Tigers would be due for a much more difficult time. Missing teams like LSU, Georgia, Ole Miss and Tennessee in 2024-25 means most if not all of those teams will be on the schedule in 2026. That said, all bets are off if the schedule is changed to nine games. If that happens, the SEC will have to reshuffle the scheduling deck and here’s to hoping the Tigers get dealt aces again.
