SEC Votes To Eliminate Late-Season 'Cupcake Weekend' Starting In 2027

During the SEC Spring Meetings this week, SEC athletic directors voted to all play conference football games in the second-to-last week of the regular season beginning in 2027.

Traditionally, SEC schools played FCS or lower-tier FBS opponents before their typical rivalry games on the final week of the season. Per CBS Sports:

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"That's the end of cupcake weekend," SEC commissioner Greg Sankey joked. "We never got that one sponsored, though."

SEC leaders have discussed moving away from late-season "cupcake" games for the last several months, Sankey said. The conference is set to expand its conference schedule from eight to nine games with the upcoming season, making it crucial for the SEC to capitalize with bigger games later in the schedule.

"It's nine conference games and a recognition that you're populating more weekends," Sankey said. "And so you really cannot have odd numbers of open or non-conference dates later in the season because then that has a backward domino effect in where you place games early. We ran into some of that in the '26 season."

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