SEC Football Schedule Winners and Losers: Auburn Draws Both Powerhouses

Only in the SEC can a schedule update just mean more.

As a result of moving to nine conference games starting in 2026, the SEC needed to figure out three annual opponents for all 16 teams that would pair with a rotating list of six other games on the schedule. In several cases, that meant breaking up several long-standing (and some unspoken of) rivalries, plus difficult decisions to balance geography, competitive balance, and the ability to have enough juicy television inventory every week.

That end result came out Monday, as first reported by On3 and confirmed by Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde, ahead of an official announcement Tuesday. While we don’t know the complete 2026 slate for each school and how demanding the schedule will be, we have a good idea who is jumping for joy and who is rolling their eyes.

Who won and who lost from the first set of annual opponents to the SEC football schedule?

Winners

Tennessee

Historically, Kentucky and Vanderbilt have been among the least successful football programs in the SEC. Thanks to the proximity benefit, the Vols are the only team in the conference that draws both the Commodores and Wildcats on an annual basis. They get to also keep their Third Saturday in October date with Alabama—a much more winnable game without Nick Saban around—and won’t have to play former East Division rivals Georgia and Florida together each season. That’s about as good as it gets.

Florida

As Billy Napier would tell you, the Gators have played one of, if not the, toughest schedules in the country the past two years. Things might be slightly easier moving forward with Florida playing South Carolina and Kentucky each season in addition to the traditional game against Georgia. That’s a nice break, all things considered, and comes with the end of an annual game against LSU—something fans might not be too broken up over considering how strange those games against the Tigers have played out in recent years.

Oklahoma

Last week, the Sooners were set to play a ranked opponent in every single game of SEC play, but that might not be the case in the future each season. There naturally was the assumption that the Red River Rivalry with Texas would continue unabated, but Oklahoma also benefits from netting Ole Miss and Missouri among its annual opponents. The game with the Rebels feels conjured out of thin air (they’ve met just once so far during the regular season), but could have been worse had it been Texas A&M or LSU. Having the Tigers around annually is a nice nod to their shared Big 8/Big 12 days and should probably have some sort of trophy added to it to honor retiring athletic director Joe Castiglione.

SWC fans

Long live the Southwest Conference! Fans of the forgotten league got their wish in seeing that several old-school matchups will be preserved moving forward, including Texas A&M-Texas and Arkansas-Texas. Throw in some SWC-adjacent games like Oklahoma-Texas, LSU-Arkansas and Texas A&M-LSU and the western side of the SEC will still maintain a link to the past.

ESPN and the schedule makers

While it’s normally the case that the SEC schedule is going to produce some fantastic matchups, this set of annual opponents should allow ESPN to ensure there’s one candidate for that ABC prime-time game from Week 1 all the way through to Thanksgiving. One week it will be Florida-Georgia, another Oklahoma-Texas, and then you can sprinkle in some Alabama-Tennessee as needed among the options until you arrive at the Iron Bowl and Egg Bowl to end the season. Plus, we’ll have four more years of talking about these opponents until the SEC has to redo the whole thing again. Content is king, and the SEC just made more of it.

Losers

Arkansas

The Hogs were always going to be in a tough position given their geography and the need to maintain a tie with longtime rivals Texas and LSU—both will be annual games moving forward. Throw in the fact that Missouri has largely surpassed Arkansas in terms of its standing in the league, and it’s a tough schedule ahead in Fayetteville, Ark., before you even start factoring in potential games against Alabama, Georgia or Texas A&M.

Auburn

Unfortunately for the Tigers, they were the only team in the SEC that drew powerhouses Georgia and Alabama—winners of the conference in 10 of the last 11 seasons—each year. You can bet they’ll be broken up in terms of home/road split against Auburn, but that’s a tough one to handle before even getting to how much better the third annual opponent, Vanderbilt, has been lately.

LSU

Of all the programs in the SEC, LSU might have been in the most awkward spot, considering it really isn’t the top rival for any other team in the league. It certainly isn’t the most hated foe of any of its three new annual opponents Arkansas (Texas is), Ole Miss (Mississippi State) or Texas A&M (Texas, naturally). On top of that, the annual clash of titans with Alabama is going away and while most fans probably aren’t too sad about the lack of an annual contest against Florida, that’s a loss of a generally interesting game.

Texas

The Longhorns garner a lot of antipathy in college football in general, but their three annual opponents —Texas A&M, Arkansas, and Oklahoma —might be the most hateful trio directed toward one school among all the combinations. There may be general animosity for Mississippi State against Alabama or Kentucky against Tennessee, but it’s nothing compared to the spite that all three fan bases have for Texas on a 365-day basis. That makes three difficult games even more so.

Airlines

Per Yahoo Sports’s Ross Dellenger, the average distance of this slate of annual opponents is just 281 miles and most annual opponents are in nearby states. That’s a sharp contrast to some leagues, meaning most of these regularly scheduled contests will be drivable for the vast majority of SEC fans. That’s a win for common sense and a loss for a couple of airlines with big hubs in Dallas and Atlanta, who may have benefited from some longer trips.

The Columbia Cup

When Missouri joined the SEC, it was somewhat shoehorned into scheduling a game against South Carolina, as a play on the two towns where the programs reside. Well, that is going away on an annual basis as there will no longer be a battle for the right to claim Columbia supremacy. This has actually become a fairly fun series, which has featured numerous close games that have come down to the fourth quarter, so it’s a bigger loss than you would expect when it was first contrived.