DESTIN, Fla. — After months of debate, the Southeastern Conference will stick with an eight-game conference schedule for football for at least one year.
SEC presidents and chancellors voted unanimously Thursday to play eight conference games in 2024. The move coincides with Texas and Oklahoma joining the league.
Schools are also required to play at least one opponent from a Power Five conference or major independent. LSU meets that criteria with its 2024 season opener against Southern California in Las Vegas.
What will happen beyond 2024 is still up for debate. The SEC retained the option to revisit the schedule format in the near future, possibly to add a ninth game, which has had the support of several schools including LSU. However, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said Thursday that the conference could stick with eight.
Each school’s 2024 conference schedule will be announced on June 14 during a special prime-time show on the SEC Network, and dates of games will be announced at a later date. Sankey said each team's eight games will be chosen for fairness and balance, with consideration given to traditional rivalries.
However, multiple sources have said that LSU will play Texas A&M in 2024. The Aggies have been discussed as a permanent opponent for LSU in an eight-game format as well as a potential nine-game format, along with Alabama and Ole Miss. For 2024, the SEC will not designate a permanent opponent for any schools, though Sankey said permanents will be part of any long-term scheduling format in the future.
Because the SEC is dissolving its East and West divisions starting with the 2024 season, how many of LSU’s other traditional SEC West rivals the Tigers play is unclear. In the current eight-game format, LSU plays Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Ole Miss, Mississippi State and A&M each year out of the West, and Florida as a permanent opponent from the East. LSU also has has one rotating East division opponent, which in 2023 is Missouri.
There have been several sticking points in the way of the SEC moving to a nine-game schedule.
According to CBSSports.com, just five schools — LSU, A&M, Florida, Georgia and Missouri — are firmly in the nine-game camp. Texas and Oklahoma, who do not yet get a vote on scheduling or other SEC matters, also both support nine games.
But enough conference members have concerns about the nine-game format to keep that plan from going forward — at least for now. Chief among them is the uncertainty over whether ESPN/ABC/Disney would pay the SEC for more conference games. The SEC and the media giant agreed to a 10-year, $3 billion deal in 2020, roughly a year before Texas and OU announced their intentions to join the SEC.
Another issue is a concern over what a nine-game SEC schedule would mean for the College Football Playoff, which also expands from four to 12 teams for the 2024 season. How much value the CFP selection committee would place on a ninth SEC game — especially when the SEC is expected to annually send more teams to an expanded playoff — is an unknown that gives some schools pause.
"Creating a one-year schedule will provide a longer on-ramp to manage football scheduling around existing nonconference commitments of our members," Sankey said in a statement. "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 scheduling."
Some schools with weaker football programs are concerned with getting to six wins to be bowl-eligible, preferring to have a winnable fourth nonconference game.
LSU opens this season Sept. 3 in Orlando, Florida, against Florida State, and opens SEC play Sept. 16 at Mississippi State.