While competition heats up in the final weeks of the college football season, a handful of SEC teams are getting their annual gift: a late-season cupcake before rivalry week and the postseason.
Undefeated and No. 3 Texas A&M hosts Samford (1-10), No. 4 Georgia welcomes Charlotte (1-9), No. 10 Alabama welcomes Eastern Illinois (3-8) and LSU hosts Western Kentucky (8-2).
Whether these games promise a stress-free Saturday is up for debate, but they were scheduled with the intention of giving projected contenders a breather before the home stretch. This is a longtime scheduling feature in the SEC, helped somewhat by a schedule that requires only eight conference games.
That comes to an end next season. In August, the SEC announced a switch to nine conference games in 2026, which has left coaches fearing a lot more is at stake than the loss of an easy late-season win.
“I’ve already been on the record saying it makes no sense to go to nine games in the SEC,” Kentucky coach Mark Stoops said Wednesday. “Everybody outside of our league, of course they want us to. They want us to devour each other like we’re doing. Makes no sense.”
Texas coach Steve Sarkisian is near the end of his second year coaching in the SEC. The Longhorns competed in the Big 12 for his first three seasons.
“In the National Football League right now, today, there are 451 active players from the Southeastern Conference,” Sarkisian said. “The next closest conference with players in the NFL is the Big Ten with 288, then the ACC with 218, and then the Big 12 with 207. So that should just speak to the volume of quality players that are in this league.”
Strength of schedule
The Big Ten and Big 12 already play nine-game conference schedules and SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey made clear the reason for the move, noting “our requirement to play an additional power opponent ensures SEC teams are well prepared to compete and succeed in the College Football Playoff.” A month later, the ACC made the move as well, albeit with some wrinkles.
All conferences are looking for ways for their teams to spruce up their CFP resumes. Still, Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz criticized the selection process, which this fall added more emphasis on a team’s schedule strength. The CFP committee this week ranked Notre Dame (9) ahead of Alabama (10), a decision that turned heads. Both teams have two losses, but the Crimson Tide have four ranked wins compared to Notre Dame’s one ranked win against USC.
“The level of inconsistencies that have been created is hard to ignore, and we were all given the promise there’s gonna be a strength of schedule metric factored in — didn’t happen,” Drinkwitz said.
What about the cupcake games?
Nine-game conference schedules won’t eliminate all so-called guarantee games from the schedule. Most power conference teams play 12 regular-season games and strive for 10 of those to be against their peers, leaving room for two other games that will almost certainly be against Championship Subdivision or Group of Five teams. Payouts for FCS games are usually less than Group of Five matchups.
This season, Bowl Subdivision teams are 118-4 against FCS opponents with a margin of victory of 34.5 points, according to Sportradar. Within that, power conference teams are 56-0, winning by an average of 42.7 points. They are virtually guaranteed wins and that can be attractive to team schedule-makers looking at seasons that can stretch to 16 games when the CFP is included.
Kentucky is out of the playoff picture, and Missouri and Texas are in the lower half of the CFP rankings with three losses apiece. But it’s not just those on the outside looking in who have complaints. Texas A&M coach Mike Elko, whose Aggies top the conference and are primed for the first-round bye, worries about the future of SEC teams in the 12-team CFP bracket if strength of schedule isn’t taken into account.
“We have to figure out how to reward SEC teams for playing in the SEC, because if we’re not going to be rewarded for strength of schedule metrics, and we’re not going to be rewarded for strength of record, then it’s going to become really, really challenging with us going to nine SEC games to figure out how the best teams are going to get into the playoffs,” Elko said.
Easy wins aren’t the only thing at risk. With the addition of a ninth conference game, coaches fear they may be trading them for fewer bids. And without acknowledgment from the CFP committee, the SEC could find itself taking on a tougher challenge with a lesser reward.
“The coaches have been pounding this drum and nobody seems to be listening,” Elko said.
Reporting by The Associated Press.
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