As the Southeastern Conference debates the merits of its conference football scheduling future during this week’s spring meetings in Destin, those outside the league are closely watching.
There is growing sentiment to remain with the current eight-game schedule, but some in the league want to see it expand to nine when Texas and Oklahoma join in 2024.
Moving to nine would require some schools to make alterations with at least 38 non-conference games impacted, whether rescheduled or canceled, according to Brandon Marcello of 247Sports.
One of those games that could be affected is Florida’s home game against UCF on Oct. 5, 2024. It’s the first three-game series between the instate schools, with a return trip to Orlando on Sept. 14, 2030 and another trip to Gainesville on Sept. 3, 2033.
“The [UF] AD [Scott Stricklin] has given me the heads up that it could be a possibility,” UCF AD Terry Mohajir told the Sentinel. “I knew that when we signed the contract but needed the game. He did us a favor by playing us because we needed a game.”
The Gators’ non-conference schedule in 2024 also includes Miami (Aug. 31), Samford (Sept. 7) and a trip to Florida State (Nov. 30).
The Miami game is the first of a home-and-home series with the Gators traveling to South Florida on Sept. 20, 2025. It would be the 57th time the two programs have met since 1938. Florida has only faced UCF three previous times with the last meeting coming in the 2021 Gasparilla Bowl.
The Florida State game has been a yearly rivalry starting in 1958, so it’s unlikely that UF would drop that matchup, leaving the remaining three up in the air. With nine SEC games, keeping an FCS opponent, such as Samford, on the slate would make sense. That means Miami or UCF could be chopped.
That uncertainty has made scheduling challenging for Mohajir, but that’s nothing new. Since he arrived in February 2021, football scheduling has been a constant concern.
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“When I first got here, the first six to nine months, I was trying to take games because we were running out of time,” Mohajir recently told the Sentinel. “And because we were in the American and playing in a Group of Five conference, we were trying to play two Power Fives [schools] in nonconference.
“Fast forward, you’re going to be playing nine Power Five teams a year, really 10 Power Five schools because the Big 12 has a policy in which you have to play at least one Power Five team in the non-conference [schedule]. You don’t want to load up on multiple Power Five teams in your non-conference [schedule], so our philosophy is you play one Power Five, you play a Group of Five and you play a [team from the] Football Championship Subdivision.”
Mohajir would like to play a local or regional FCS school each year.
“So we can give some money to some of the other schools in the state and keep the money in the state. That’s my philosophy, but you can’t always get everybody to schedule,” he added.
UCF’s future football schedule remains in flux and Mohajir admits there will be a domino effect if the SEC goes to a nine-game conference schedule.
Mohajir said he’s reached out to Miami and Florida State, but there is no interest right now. That could change.
Meanwhile, the Knights need to fill plenty of holes in the coming years:
2024: New Hampshire (8/31), Sam Houston (9/7), Florida (10/5)
2025: at Maryland (8/30), North Carolina (9/20), TBD
2026: TBD, TBD, TBD
2027: at North Carolina (9/4), Louisiana (9/18); TBD
2028: Maryland (9/9), FAU (9/16), TBD
2029: TBD, TBD, TBD
2030: Florida (9/14), TBD, TBD
2031: TBD, TBD, TBD
2032: TBD, TBD, TBD
2033: Florida (9/3), TBD, TBD
