SEC is right to go to 9 league games — even if it makes UK football success harder
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- SEC will move to a nine-game football schedule starting with the 2026 season.
- New schedule retains a non-divisional format and three permanent rivalries per team.
- Kentucky may lose its annual rivalry with Tennessee due to schedule realignment.
What Greg Sankey wants, Greg Sankey eventually gets.
When the news release announcing that the Southeastern Conference will implement a nine-game league football schedule in 2026 hit my email box late Thursday afternoon, Sankey’s triumph was the first thing that passed through my mind.
Not long after it was announced in July 2021 that Oklahoma and Texas were SEC bound, it became apparent that Sankey, the Southeastern Conference commissioner, favored a nine-game league football slate.
The biggest surprise from Thursday’s announcement is that it took Sankey four years to overcome the internal opposition in the league — of which University of Kentucky representatives were at the forefront — to get his way on the nine-game schedule.
In its news release announcing the ninth game, the SEC also said that:
• The league will continue with a single-standings, non-divisional structure;
• Each school will play three annual opponents focused on maintaining traditional rivalries;
• Each team’s remaining six games will rotate among the remaining conference schools;
• And each team will face every other SEC program at least once every two years and every opponent home and away within every four years.
In the big picture, reasons why the move to nine league games is the correct one for the SEC are multiple.
The move to nine league contests a year from the current eight should allow the SEC to get media rights partner Disney/ESPN/ABC to pay the conference more money. According to The Athletic, ESPN is willing to pay $50 to $80 million more for the rights to broadcast the eight additional league games the SEC will play.
Going to nine games should also allow the Southeastern Conference to preserve “secondary rivalries” — think Alabama-LSU, Georgia-Auburn and Texas-Texas A&M — on an annual basis.
If, as expected. the ACC follows the SEC in moving to nine league games, it will mean that all four remaining power conferences (the Big Ten and Big 12 are the other two) are playing the same number of conference contests.
That has the potential to create a more uniform selection process for the College Football Playoff.
From the perspective of UK, the move from eight to nine SEC games annually figures to make the Wildcats’ historically difficult challenge of succeeding in football more daunting.
“There’s no mystery on where I stand on eight or nine (league games),” Kentucky athletics director Mitch Barnhart said earlier this month at UK football media day. “Eight is better for Kentucky.”
There has been speculation that, if the SEC moved to nine league games, UK might end its annual non-league rivalry game with Louisville.
That would allow Kentucky to stay at nine power conference games a season plus have greater flexibility in maximizing the number of non-league home games held at Kroger Field each season.
However, the Southeastern Conference news release Thursday emphasized that “SEC teams are required to schedule at least one additional high quality non-conference (foe) from the Atlantic Coast, Big Ten or Big 12 conferences or Notre Dame each season. The SEC will continue to evaluate its policies to ensure the continued scheduling of high-quality, non-conference opponents.”
The Governor’s Cup series is presently contracted through 2030.
Actually, it may be Kentucky’s annual border rivalry with Tennessee that will fall victim to the SEC scheduling alterations.
On his Oct. 23, 2023, radio show, Kentucky coach Mark Stoops was asked whether UK was assured of continuing to play Tennessee every year regardless of which scheduling format — eight league games or nine — the SEC ultimately adopted.
At that time, school officials around the league had received information from the SEC office on who their permanent opponents would be under either a 3-6 (three annual foes, six rotating) or a 1-7 (one annual, seven rotating) scheduling format.
At the 27:28 mark of that radio show, Stoops said that “regardless of whether (the future SEC schedule format) is nine or eight (games) or whatever, we will not play (Tennessee) every year.”
While UT has always been UK’s primary league rival, the Wildcats don’t necessarily carry the same cachet for the Volunteers.
Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Vanderbilt may all rate higher on the Tennessee “rivalry scale” than does Kentucky.
My guess is Kentucky’s three permanent league foes will be either Florida or Georgia, South Carolina and either Vanderbilt or Missouri.
That UK has had so much trouble beating Tennessee — Kentucky is 26-85-9 vs. UT overall; is 15-62-3 against the Vols since World War II; and is 3-22 so far in the 21st century — likely does not buttress any Wildcats efforts to keep the annual series alive.
Still, it will be a very different experience for the Big Blue Nation if Tennessee is not an annual focal point of Kentucky football seasons.
The SEC going to nine league football games is a positive on multiple levels. For UK football, adding that ninth league game is problematic at best.
This story was originally published August 21, 2025 at 8:57 PM.
