{"id":319005,"date":"2025-08-26T12:53:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T12:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/319005\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T12:53:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T12:53:11","slug":"greg-sankey-reveals-timeline-for-2026-sec-football-schedule-release","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/319005\/","title":{"rendered":"Greg Sankey reveals timeline for 2026 SEC football schedule release"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, the SEC officially announced<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

When will the SEC release the permanent opponents and the complete 2026 football schedule? We assumed the SEC would accomplish that in two stages \u2014 opponents in the next few weeks and the full schedule in mid-December.<\/p>\n

Over the weekend, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey provided the answers<\/a> to those questions on a recent episode of The Paul Finebaum Show.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe anticipate presenting the 2026 football schedule mid-season to our schools,\u201d Sankey said. \u201cWe think that December announcement date has worked great. \u2026 We\u2019ll continue to look at that December for the full release. But a lot of work to be done between now and then.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of pre-work,\u201d Sankey said. \u201cWe have had great work among our staff. \u2026 We\u2019ll 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\u2019ll do much the same in the weeks and months ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for each SEC teams\u2019 three permanent rivals, Sankey provided more detail on how the league will make that determination.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo what we\u2019ll do is, we\u2019ll look at historic rivalries \u2013 that\u2019s a really important component,\u201d Sankey said. \u201cWe have a lot of those. In fact, in many ways, we\u2019re uniquely positioned to honor those historic rivalries. So those become annual opponents on a schedule. Not everyone has three, but that\u2019s 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\u2019ll 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Alabama<\/a> \u2013\u00a0Auburn, Tennessee, LSU<\/p>\n

Arkansas<\/a> \u2013 Missouri, Texas, Kentucky<\/p>\n

Auburn<\/a> \u2013 Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina<\/p>\n

Florida<\/a> \u2013 Georgia, South Carolina, Oklahoma<\/p>\n

Georgia<\/a> \u2013 Auburn, Florida, Kentucky<\/p>\n

Kentucky<\/a> \u2013 Mississippi State, Arkansas, Georgia<\/p>\n

LSU<\/a> \u2013 Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Alabama<\/p>\n

Mississippi State<\/a> \u2013 Ole Miss, Kentucky, Texas A&M<\/p>\n

Missouri<\/a> \u2013 Oklahoma, Arkansas, Vanderbilt<\/p>\n

Oklahoma<\/a> \u2013 Texas, Missouri, Florida<\/p>\n

Ole Miss<\/a> \u2013 Mississippi State, LSU, Vanderbilt<\/p>\n

South Carolina<\/a> \u2013 Florida, Auburn, Tennessee<\/p>\n

Tennessee<\/a> \u2013 Vanderbilt, Alabama, South Carolina<\/p>\n

Texas<\/a> \u2013 Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Arkansas<\/p>\n

Texas A&M<\/a> \u2013 LSU, Texas, Mississippi State<\/p>\n

Vanderbilt<\/a> \u2013 Tennessee, Ole Miss, Missouri<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week, the SEC officially announced it will begin playing a nine-game conference football schedule in 2026. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[52,1001,987,380,7,629,993,978,17653,1684,1135,899,1686,526,51,1687,2286],"class_list":{"0":"post-319005","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-alabama","9":"tag-arkansas","10":"tag-auburn","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-georgia","14":"tag-kentucky","15":"tag-lsu","16":"tag-mississippi-state","17":"tag-missouri","18":"tag-oklahoma","19":"tag-ole-miss","20":"tag-south-carolina","21":"tag-tennessee","22":"tag-texas","23":"tag-texas-am","24":"tag-vanderbilt"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115095168864486335","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}