UK Fans of the Day want SEC Scheduling Mockups

Mock draft season is over. Scheduling mocks are flooding the internet in the wake of the news that the SEC will move to nine conference games in football in 2026. Each SEC team will have three permanent opponents, “focused on maintaining many traditional rivalries,” with the remaining six games rotating among the remaining SEC schools. Every team will face every other SEC team at least once every two years and every opponent, home and away, in four years. Of the three non-conference opponents, one must be from a power conference, which likely preserves the Governor’s Cup.

The SEC will reveal each team’s permanent opponents in December; until then, we’re all just guessing. In 2023, a proposal made the rounds that factored in each team’s rivals, competitive balance (determined by an analytics company that examined each team’s record over the last ten years), and geography; yesterday, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said that the league will emphasize tradition most of those three.

As you might expect, the internet is full of opinions. Adam Luckett shared his last night. Here are some more guesses from college football writers and personalities.

Andy Staples: Georgia, Mississippi State, South Carolina

There’s no way that Kentucky can get away with not playing a really good team; this is the SEC after all. With that in mind, our colleague Andy Staples paired the Cats with Georgia and two quasi-rivals, Mississippi State and South Carolina. Tennessee is probably Kentucky’s biggest SEC rival, but the Cats aren’t the only team that can say that. Staples paired the Vols with Alabama, Florida, and Vanderbilt. He also factored TV ratings/entertainment factor into his matchups.

Ross Dellenger: Mississippi State, Arkansas, Georgia

Few people are as clued in on the behind-the-scenes workings as Ross Dellenger. A list he made three years ago with permanent opponents for each team is making the rounds, but he took to Twitter this morning to clarify it was only his guess as to what the SEC will do, not an official list. He also listed Georgia and Mississippi State as Kentucky’s rivals, but swapped South Carolina for Arkansas.

Seth Emerson: Tennessee, Mississippi State, Arkansas

Over at The Athletic, Seth Emerson gives Kentucky a more favorable draw, swapping Georgia for Tennessee. That gives Kentucky a game against its biggest SEC rival and a team that’s not as good as Georgia year to year. Yes, please.

SEC Mike: Tennessee, Mississippi State, South Carolina

SEC Mike also has Kentucky with Tennessee and Mississippi State, and trades Arkansas for South Carolina. The Gamecocks have been a better team as of late, but this trio feels the most “right” to me in terms of rivalries.

Bill Connelly: Florida, Tennessee, Vanderbilt

Bill Connelly’s mock-up came out after the SEC Spring Meetings, but it is worth sharing. The SP+ rankings guru ran a simulation of four years’ worth of nine-game SEC schedules based on the exact model that the conference is going with: three permanent rivals plus six other opponents. With that in mind, he paired Kentucky with Florida, Tennessee, and Vanderbilt. His mockup preserves all but one of the series that have been played 90-plus times. He even went as far as to draw up a complete 2026 schedule.

Comparing his SP+ projections for the four-year rotation to the current eight-game format, Connelly found that moving to nine conference games won’t make a huge difference for the elite teams. It becomes more impactful as you go down the ladder.

For the league’s light heavyweights, however, things get trickier. Florida has a 43.7% chance of finishing 9-3 or better in 2025, but in a nine-SEC-games universe, that drops to 19.6%. Four others see their odds drop by at least 10%, and current long shots like Vanderbilt (10.2% chance of going 9-3 in 2025) see their odds almost completely vanish (0.1%).

Overall, an average of 6.2 SEC teams are projected to go 9-3 or better in 2025. In a nine-game universe, that average shrinks to 4.7. With a 16-team field, you could say that the league would go from expecting around six teams in the field to having four or five teams safely in and campaigning for some 8-4 teams. Meanwhile, the league would also go from an average of 13.4 bowl-eligible teams to just 11.4.

Bill Connelly, ESPN

Brandon Marcello: Georgia, Mississippi State, South Carolina

Brandon Marcello goes with the same trio as Andy Staples for Kentucky. He based his projections on the conference winning percentages for each team over the last ten years (if you’re curious, Kentucky ranks 12th), more recent trends, and traditional rivalries.