re: The SEC will announce the 2026 9 opponents for its teams this coming Tuesday

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In the past, you shared 6 of the exact same games as half the conference, and only 2 were different, so the one that was the annual opponent carried a ton of weight - essentially 50% of the variables in the conference schedule.

But now, the annual opponent will only be 3 of 9, so only 33% and the selection of the 3 determines the pool to select the other 6.

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I’m with you on this, and I’ve been saying it for a while now. I think we are all so stuck in the mindset of the old SEC - where you might play a non-permanent SECe team once or twice a decade in the regular season - that it’s kind of hard to imagine a future where we play every team in the SEC at least twice over a 4 year period.

That being said.. the bigger issue, IMO, is how the hell the SEC manages to create the rest of the schedule beyond the permanent opponents.

Using your Alabama example.. while it’s certainly possible that they play 4-5 “top” teams every year, there’s no guarantee of this. In fact it’s entirely possible that we could see something like the following:

Year One
LSU plays Alabama, Ole Miss, A&M, Texas, Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, Auburn, and Tennessee.

Alabama plays LSU, Tennessee, Auburn, Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Arkansas, Mizzou, Mississippi State, and South Carolina.

Year Two
LSU plays Alabama, Ole Miss, A&M, Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Arkansas, Mizzou, Mississippi State, and South Carolina.

Alabama plays LSU, Tennessee, Auburn, Ole Miss, A&M, Texas, Florida, Georgia, and Oklahoma.

Is this fair over the long run? Sure, I guess. It balances out a lot better than the old system over time. But in a new SEC without divisions, where H2H doesn’t mean as much due to prevalence of 3-way ties, it has potential to create some fricked up individual seasons. I don’t think it’s likely that we see anything quite this extreme, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we still see some major schedule inequities each year.

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No big surprises in general but the fact that Arky and Mizzou are confirmed and the fact that they typically play on rivalry weekend indicates (imho) a strong possibility that OU is going to be one of LSU’s three.

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The fact that Arkansas and Missouri are set to play each other annually does not necessitate that they play each other on rivalry weekend every year. LSU and Missouri could still easily alternate playing Arkansas and Oklahoma that weekend.

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Are you talking about LSU's 3 "permanent" opponents? Because those have already been announced. LSU has: Arkansas, Ole Miss, Alabama. My guess for the 9 Arkansas Ole Miss Alabama Auburn Kentucky Texas Miss. St. Missouri Oklahoma EDT: I stand corrected. I thought I recall seeing a list of the permanent opponents are few weeks ago.

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Been here for 23 years and this is one of the worst posts I’ve ever seen. Dumbass