Last week, the SEC officially announced it will begin playing a nine-game conference football schedule in 2026. The schedule will feature three permanent rivals for each team as well as six opponents that will rotate annually.

When will the SEC release the permanent opponents and the complete 2026 football schedule? We assumed the SEC would accomplish that in two stages — opponents in the next few weeks and the full schedule in mid-December.

Over the weekend, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey provided the answers to those questions on a recent episode of The Paul Finebaum Show.

“We anticipate presenting the 2026 football schedule mid-season to our schools,” Sankey said. “We think that December announcement date has worked great. … We’ll continue to look at that December for the full release. But a lot of work to be done between now and then.”

The past two years, the SEC has announced its league football schedule on the second Wednesday of the month. With that in mind, we would expect the 2026 SEC football schedule to be revealed on Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025.

Ahead of that release, the SEC will announce the opponents for next season, which will include the new permanent rivalries. That should be sometime in September in a primetime reveal on the SEC Network.

“There’s been a lot of pre-work,” Sankey said. “We have had great work among our staff. … We’ll be rapid, but remember, when we went in Destin two years ago, we took a couple more weeks and we had that mid-June announcement of opponents. And then, we had a later announcement of the schedule. So we want to create opportunities for interest and celebration, and we’ll do much the same in the weeks and months ahead.”

As for each SEC teams’ three permanent rivals, Sankey provided more detail on how the league will make that determination.

“So what we’ll do is, we’ll look at historic rivalries – that’s a really important component,” Sankey said. “We have a lot of those. In fact, in many ways, we’re uniquely positioned to honor those historic rivalries. So those become annual opponents on a schedule. Not everyone has three, but that’s the basis is three annual opponents. Geography may dictate some of that, and then as you go down the line, the remaining opportunities to have annual opponents kind of fill out the roster. And then, you look at the six. Remember, they’ll rotate more quickly. Our fans will see their team play every conference member every two years, and every four years, our fans will be able to see their team play at home against every conference opponent. Those are great things.”

Below is a prediction of the three permanent opponents for each SEC team beginning 2026, via Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports (again, just a prediction):

Alabama – Auburn, Tennessee, LSU

Arkansas – Missouri, Texas, Kentucky

Auburn – Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina

Florida – Georgia, South Carolina, Oklahoma

Georgia – Auburn, Florida, Kentucky

Kentucky – Mississippi State, Arkansas, Georgia

LSU – Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Alabama

Mississippi State – Ole Miss, Kentucky, Texas A&M

Missouri – Oklahoma, Arkansas, Vanderbilt

Oklahoma – Texas, Missouri, Florida

Ole Miss – Mississippi State, LSU, Vanderbilt

South Carolina – Florida, Auburn, Tennessee

Tennessee – Vanderbilt, Alabama, South Carolina

Texas – Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Arkansas

Texas A&M – LSU, Texas, Mississippi State

Vanderbilt – Tennessee, Ole Miss, Missouri