The SEC will reveal its new 9-game schedule model on Tuesday (9/23)

[Rickyvol77]

Tennessee	Vanderbilt	Alabama	Kentucky
Vanderbilt	Tennessee	Kentucky	Ole Miss
Alabama	Auburn	Tennessee	Mississippi St
Auburn	Alabama	Georgia	Oklahoma
Georgia	Florida	Auburn	South Carolina
Florida	Georgia	South Carolina	LSU
Ole Miss	Mississippi St	LSU	Vanderbilt
Mississippi St	Ole Miss	Texas A&M	Alabama
Texas	Texas A&M	Oklahoma	Arkansas
Texas A&M	Texas	Mississippi St	Missouri
Oklahoma	Missouri	Texas	Auburn
Missouri	Oklahoma	Arkansas	Texas A&M
Arkansas	LSU	Missouri	Texas
LSU	Arkansas	Ole Miss	Florida
South Carolina	Kentucky	Florida	Georgia
Kentucky	South Carolina	Vanderbilt	Tennessee

although it is possible that Auburn gets Mizzou and Oklahoma gets Texas A&M instead

 

[maryvillenative]

UT will have to got to Texas first(mark my word) and unless Archie gets it together, he may not be the starter

We had to go to Oklahoma first so hopefully they let us have utx at home first

 

[Rickyvol77]

We need to play Alabama, Florida, and Georgia every year. I'm not interested in watching games against scrub teams. I want games like this past Saturday where the entire nation is watching.

Quit with this dumb take again.

Just because we play Kentucky and Vandy every year like we do now doesn't mean we will be playing scrub teams.

Instead of playing Florida and UGA every year, we will either play teams like Auburn or LSU or Texas in their place OR we will play one of them a year and the other the next year.

 

[ButchPlz]

Quit with this dumb take again.

Just because we play Kentucky and Vandy every year like we do now doesn't mean we will be playing scrub teams.

Instead of playing Florida and UGA every year, we will either play teams like Auburn or LSU or Texas in their place OR we will play one of them a year and the other the next year.

The whole balance thing is such a stupid argument. If you don't have the strong teams as "permanent" opponents, you'll get them anyway in the other 6 games.

 

[Volbrando]

The whole balance thing is such a stupid argument. If you don't have the strong teams as "permanent" opponents, you'll get them anyway in the other 6 games.

exactly... this just means who you are guaranteed to play every year... the SEC can be a gauntlet anyways, we'll have a tough schedule... but I like the 2 guaranteed wins at least there

 

[tricky13]

My prediction

FCS
Georgia Tech
FCS
Texas
@ Texas A&M
@ Missouri
Alabama
Kentucky
Auburn
@ Ole Miss
LSU
@ Vanderbilt

 

[zeppelin128]

We could solve these disagreements by playing a 9 game SEC schedule in a conference consisting of the OG 10 schools from the 80s. Everybody plays everybody, and we would get to continue to play the teams we love to hate, and restart some old rivalries with Ole Miss and Barn, too.

We could call it a southeastern conference, maybe.

 

[ENGRVOL]

If they value maintaining the top rivalry of each school our 3 permanent opponents will have to be Kentucky, Vandy, and Bama. Period.

We are UK and Vandy’s top rival by far and Bama is ours. If Kentucky or Vandy isn’t permanent then the conference is basically saying to those schools they are insignificant (which essentially they are) and don’t merit having any rivalry maintained.

 

[NighthawkVol]

We could solve these disagreements by playing a 9 game SEC schedule in a conference consisting of the OG 10 schools from the 80s. Everybody plays everybody, and we would get to continue to play the teams we love to hate, and restart some old rivalries with Ole Miss and Barn, too.

We could call it a southeastern conference, maybe.

I see what you did there.

 

[ButchPlz]

I see what you did there.

One of my proposals was to just grow the SEC to 20 teams, and split back into divisions with an original division and an addition division.

Or, if they're serious about this 70-80 team superleague, that makes it even easier. Petiti and Sankey can be the heads however they want, but it'll be split into 7 or 8 10-team divisions that resemble classic conferences (SEC, Big Ten, Southwest, Pac-10, etc.). I made a spreadsheet of this somewhere....

EDIT: here's a 90-team superleague...tried to mix history + geography + revenue + metro area value.

Team	Proposed Division
Maryland	Atlantic Coast
Clemson	Atlantic Coast
Duke	Atlantic Coast
Georgia Tech	Atlantic Coast
NC State	Atlantic Coast
North Carolina	Atlantic Coast
Virginia	Atlantic Coast
Wake Forest	Atlantic Coast
Florida State	Atlantic Coast
UCF	Atlantic Coast
Cincinnati	Big East
West Virginia	Big East
Louisville	Big East
Notre Dame	Big East
UConn	Big East
Temple	Big East
Appalachian State	Big East
Liberty	Big East
Pittsburgh	Big East
Old Dominion	Big East
Illinois	Big Ten
Indiana	Big Ten
Iowa	Big Ten
Michigan	Big Ten
Michigan State	Big Ten
Minnesota	Big Ten
Northwestern	Big Ten
Ohio State	Big Ten
Purdue	Big Ten
Wisconsin	Big Ten
Memphis	Metro
Virginia Tech	Metro
Boston College	Metro
Miami (FL)	Metro
Syracuse	Metro
Penn State	Metro
Rutgers	Metro
South Carolina	Metro
Tulane	Metro
South Florida (USF)	Metro
Washington State	Pac10
Oregon State	Pac10
Oregon	Pac10
UCLA	Pac10
USC	Pac10
Washington	Pac10
Arizona	Pac10
Arizona State	Pac10
California	Pac10
Stanford	Pac10
Missouri	Plains
Oklahoma	Plains
Nebraska	Plains
Colorado	Plains
Iowa State	Plains
Kansas	Plains
Kansas State	Plains
Oklahoma State	Plains
Tulsa	Plains
Northern Illinois	Plains
Alabama	Southeastern
Auburn	Southeastern
Florida	Southeastern
Georgia	Southeastern
Kentucky	Southeastern
LSU	Southeastern
Ole Miss	Southeastern
Mississippi State	Southeastern
Tennessee	Southeastern
Vanderbilt	Southeastern
Arkansas	Southwestern
Texas	Southwestern
Texas A&M	Southwestern
Baylor	Southwestern
Houston	Southwestern
TCU	Southwestern
Texas Tech	Southwestern
SMU	Southwestern
UTSA	Southwestern
North Texas	Southwestern
Colorado State	Western Athletic
BYU	Western Athletic
Utah	Western Athletic
Boise State	Western Athletic
San Diego State	Western Athletic
Wyoming	Western Athletic
Fresno State	Western Athletic
Air Force	Western Athletic
UNLV	Western Athletic
San Jose State	Western Athletic

 

[VolCalls]

Here’s an idea of what Tennessee’s schedule should look like in 2026, based on getting UK as the 3rd permanent and rotating on the schools that we haven’t played in the last 2 years:

Alabama
At Vanderbilt
Kentucky
Texas
At Ole Miss
Auburn
At Texas A&M
Missouri
At South Carolina

Then add a road game at Georgia Tech.

If you look at that schedule and worry about not having enough big time games…

That is a fantastic slate. Any way it shakes out is going to be difficult, but lots of fun.

 

[volbound1700]

I'm hearing that for us it will indeed be Alabama, Kentucky, and Vandy.

The fact that we play 2 games against all three in Basketball tends to lean that way. From an all-time perspective, they are the three rivals that make sense.

Florida and Georgia are great annual opponents but it is mostly based on recency bias. Tennessee rarely played both prior to 1992.

 

[NighthawkVol]

One of my proposals was to just grow the SEC to 20 teams, and split back into divisions with an original division and an addition division.

Or, if they're serious about this 70-80 team superleague, that makes it even easier. Petiti and Sankey can be the heads however they want, but it'll be split into 7 or 8 10-team divisions that resemble classic conferences (SEC, Big Ten, Southwest, Pac-10, etc.). I made a spreadsheet of this somewhere....

I miss the old SWC. I loved watching those games.

 

[ButchPlz]

I miss the old SWC. I loved watching those games.

I just edited my post to put together my list. Just an idea of something I'd like us to go back to.

 

[volbound1700]

This part isn't true, man.

In 1992, when the divisions were formed, Florida was nowhere near the top 6 in conference. At that point in history, VANDY had more "traditional power" than Florida. So did Ole Miss. So did newcomer Arkansas. It looked like this:

View attachment 774608

The conference may have divided the divisions by perceived current strength at the time, because Spurrier was already making Florida a newly interesting program. But there was zero tradition to it.


Nah, I think the SEC divided the teams geographically, east and west.* Simple as that.

Either way, I think this puts paid to your premise about the divisions being designed for balance. It may have been a factor, but certainly wasn't the be-all and end-all.

Go Vols!


*really, Northeast versus Southwest -- Vandy is geographically a bit west of Auburn, but if you angle the dividing line just a bit, you keep the two Bama schools in one division together, as well as the two Tennessee programs. So they did that.

SEC - Wins over Time

A Flourish data visualisation by JP

public.flourish.studio

This post is sad because it shows you how strong Tennessee was in 1992 and how we kind of flopped. Tennessee should have had the most SEC East titles and been the most competitive program from the 1992-2022 span. Instead, they were in the shadow of Florida and Georgia.

 

[volbound1700]

I think SEC schedules have never been, and will never be, perfectly balanced. Often, not even close.

I mean, look at poor Florida's schedule this year. Murderer's row. Certainly not balanced. No other team wants to touch what they have to face.

Plus, things are constantly moving. Who knew the year before Saban retired that Bama was going to fall so quickly--they lost FOUR games last season, and have already lost one this go.

Or Oklahoma. They looked like dog vomit much of last year, so if the SEC scheduled them as a weaker opponent, they'd be way wrong this season, it appears so far.

Or Florida. After finishing the back of their season well in 2024, if the SEC had adjusted things in the off-season, someone would have a "hard" opponent in 2025 that can't seem to find their own rear ends with both hands.

Bottom line is, it doesn't matter if you have 3 annual rivals or none, the SEC front office isn't going to balance the schedules perfectly. Maybe get close for most teams, but a few are going to be way out of whack each year no matter what.

Go Vols!

No CFB schedule is perfectly balanced and that is because teams fluctuate. Right now, perception wise, Florida is a better program than Missouri let's say but Missouri is definitely a tougher team to play in 2025 and has been up lately. There is just no way to setup a schedule that is 100% accurate so go with the true historic rivals for each opponent. Keep in mind that there are still 6 games that will rotate and SEC teams will see all their SEC brethren very often in this setup.

 

[K-town Vol Fan]

Wait. This guy who apparently once reported that Vanderbilt was offering to taken $10,000 off the tuition of every student that attended one of their 2022 football games?

I haven't heard that one. But he hasn't been wrong about a single thing in the last couple years.

 

[WVU05UT09]

The future : 20 teams, 4 5 team divisions that result in a mini SEC (B1G too) playoff leading into the national playoffs. 4 division opponents 2 from other 3. 10 games total. 5 home-5 away.

Texas
Texas A&M
Oklahoma
Missouri
Arkansas

Ole Miss
Mississippi State
LSU
Alabama
Auburn

Tennessee
Vanderbilt
Kentucky
Florida
Georgia

South Carolina
Florida State
Clemson
North Carolina
Virginia

 

[TrueOrange]

I haven't heard that one. But he hasn't been wrong about a single thing in the last couple years.

It’s on his twitter page. The one you linked his report from.

 

[Rickyvol77]

IF the SEC/Big Ten do go to 24, then I believe the FBS looks like this in 2032 (i didn't worry about divisions at this time)

SEC
Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Florida, LSU, Ole Miss, Mississippi St, Kentucky, Arkansas, South Carolina
Missouri, Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, North Carolina, NC State, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Kansas, Duke

Big Ten
Michigan, Michigan St, Ohio St, Penn St, Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Northwestern, Indiana, Purdue
USC, UCLA, Oregon, Washington, Notre Dame, Rutgers, Maryland, Florida State, Miami, Stanford, Colorado, Utah

ACC/BigXII (new conference)
Arizona, Arizona State, West Virginia, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, UCF, Cincinnati, BYU, California, Connecticut
Texas Tech, Baylor, TCU, Houston, SMU, Pittsburgh, Louisville, Boston College, Syracuse, USF, Tulane, Memphis

Pac-12
Washington St, Oregon St, Fresno St, Colorado St, San Diego St, Boise St, Texas St, Utah State
Air Force, UNLV, Nevada, Wyoming, New Mexico, San Jose St, Hawaii, UTEP

Sun Belt
South Alabama, Troy, Arkansas St, Georgia St, Ga Southern, Louisiana, La-Monroe, Louisiana Tech, Wake Forest, UTSA, Florida Atlantic, Tarleton St
Appalachian St, Coastal Carolina, James Madison, Old Dominion, Southern Miss, Marshall, Charlotte, East Carolina, UAB, Rice, Tulsa, North Texas

MAC
Ball St, Bowling Green, Miami OH, Ohio, Toledo, Akron, Kent St, Buffalo, Massachusetts, Western Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Central Michigan
Northern Illinois, Army, Navy, Delaware, Missouri State, Western Kentucky, MTSU, North Dakota, North Dakota St, South Dakota, South Dakota St, Temple

CUSA
New Mexico St, Sacramento St, Jacksonville St, Sam Houston St, Florida International, Kennesaw St, Liberty, Stephen F. Austin, Idaho, Idaho State
Jackson St, Austin Peay, West Georgia, North Alabama, Central Arkansas, Abilene Christian, Eastern Kentucky, Montana, Montana St, Cal Poly

 

[TrueOrange]

I haven't heard that one. But he hasn't been wrong about a single thing in the last couple years.

It’s on his twitter page. The one you linked that post from.



It’s also something I’m having trouble finding any proof of actually having happened (ie, other than him saying it, I’m not seeing it anywhere else)

 

[K-town Vol Fan]

It’s on his twitter page. The one you linked his report from.

I'll take your word for it, I'm not scrolling through 3 years of tweets. Point still stands, he's been right about everything recently. 9 game schedule, Keys, Ament, multiple other recruit commitments, Adidas, Mike Keith. All called before anyone else.

 

[TrueOrange]

I'll take your word for it, I'm not scrolling through 3 years of tweets. Point still stands, he's been right about everything recently. 9 game schedule, Keys, Ament, multiple other recruit commitments, Adidas, Mike Keith. All called before anyone else.

To clarify, I didn’t scroll through 3 years of tweets. I wasn’t logged into twitter, so it did that weird thing where it has that list of posts of varying dates (I presume the algorithm is basing it on levels of highest engagement/interaction for posts or something… it’s always seemed pretty random to me it picks an order like that when someone’s not currently logged in).
Anyway, It was like the 6th or 7th overall tweet his page brought up.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

This post is sad because it shows you how strong Tennessee was in 1992 and how we kind of flopped. Tennessee should have had the most SEC East titles and been the most competitive program from the 1992-2022 span. Instead, they were in the shadow of Florida and Georgia.

That's half untrue.

If you follow the timeline I linked above, you'll see that Tennessee had the most wins of any program in the SEC, surpassing Alabama, in the 2005 to 2008 window. We passed Bama in 2005, and held the lead until 2009 when Bama passed us back.



And while Steve Spurrier at Florida did have our number, we beat Georgia handily in both 2006 and 2007. We were 3-1 against them, 2004 to 2007. And we beat them every single time we played (9-0, there were a couple of years we didn't play) from 1989 to 1999.

So if you'd said we were in the shadow of Florida, I would've had to bite my tongue. But we were at least peer competitors with UGa in those days,

Anyway, you typically see this kind of spin in the posts of people trying to belittle Philip Fulmer and his tenure. They shrink wrap his 16 seasons as much as they can down to just "a few good years," while taking away from him as much as possible. So they'll say he began to decline in 2005 .... or 2001 ... or even 1999, right after our national championship season.

It's all hogwash. We were still winning the East and fighting for championships as late as 2007. The "Dark Ages" was 2008 to 2020. Thirteen years. Not twenty, or twenty-five, or thirty.

Go Vols!

 

[deatojl]

My prediction

FCS
Georgia Tech
FCS
Texas
@ Texas A&M
@ Missouri
Alabama
Kentucky
Auburn
@ Ole Miss
LSU
@ Vanderbilt

One interesting tidbit is there will be one team we haven't played the past two years that will not be included in next year's schedule. I think we get Missouri at home since we went there last time. I think we will get @South Carolina and push either Auburn or LSU to the following year.