The wait is almost over.
Tonight, the Southeastern Conference will announce its 2024 conference football schedule, the first that will include league newcomers Texas and Oklahoma. The SEC Network will televise the announcements live beginning at 7 p.m.
Dates for the games will be announced later.
"We have been engaged in planning for the entry of Oklahoma and Texas into the SEC since the summer of 2021, but the change of the membership date from 2025 to 2024 creates scheduling complexities that can better be managed with a one-year schedule," said SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey at the recent SEC spring meetings.
The following is what you need to know about the 2024 football schedule:
... SEC teams will play eight conference games, plus one additional required game against a team from a Power 5 conference (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 or major independent).
... Each university will play every other school a minimum of two times in a four-year period, regardless of whether the SEC decides to utilize an eight or nine-game conference schedule.
... Divisions are being eliminated. This means that the SEC Championship Game will feature the top two teams from the SEC overall, with the SEC East and SEC West being completely disbanded.
... Each SEC team will get to keep one "permanent" rival moving forward they will play each season. It’s expected Georgia will get to keep Florida as the annual game.
“Creating a one-year schedule will provide a longer on-ramp to manage football scheduling around existing non-conference commitments of our members,” Sankey said. “It will also provide additional time to understand the impact of an expanded College Football Playoff and engage with our media partners as we determine the appropriate long-term plan for SEC football schedule. During this time of change, our fans will continue to enjoy traditional rivalries and begin to see new matchups presented by adding two historically successful football programs to the SEC.”
As far as who Georgia might play, it’s going to be interesting to see.
With divisions no longer a determining factor, the 15 remaining league teams are all on the table.
That includes Texas, which according to published reports, has the Longhorns hosting Georgia in a game on a date to be determined this fall. A UGASports source would neither confirm nor deny the report Wednesday morning.
Florida is expected to be Georgia’s permanent rival with the two programs already agreeing to play in Jacksonville for 2024 and 2025.
But what about Auburn?
Under the eight-game schedule, it’s no longer guaranteed that long-standing rivalries like the Georgia-Auburn game would take place in 2024. Under a nine-game schedule, it’s believed that Auburn would be one of the Bulldogs’ three permanent rivals – should the conference morph into a nine-game conference schedule in 2025.
During the SEC spring meetings, both Hugh Freeze of Auburn and Georgia’s Kirby Smart said they hoped the game could be kept in place, although Georgia’s coach said he realized the game might have to be sacrificed for the conference’s greater good.
“It’s going to be tough because there are so many people that want that historic rivalry, including me. I was part of that rivalry. I grew up as part of that rivalry. I think it’s one of the best there is, but I think it’s one of the costs of progress bringing two more teams in,” Smart said. “One of the costs of scheduling, getting more balanced in terms of you’re going to play everybody. It’s not just going to be Georgia-Auburn. It’s going to be somebody else for somebody else. Sometimes you call that progress. Sometimes you upset the fans. Traditionalists want those rivalries and others want to see you play the teams they never get to see you play and you can’t have both.”
Georgia’s non-conference schedule for 2024 has the Bulldogs opening against Clemson in Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Aug. 31, with other games against Tennessee Tech (Sept. 7), UMass (Nov. 23), and Georgia Tech (Nov. 30).
