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The SEC meetings are going on this week as the country's top college football conference weighs a variety of changes and buzz of potential College Football Playoff expansion pervades the college football world. However, there is one other major issue that everyone is waiting to hear about outside of the CFP talk.
Many college football fans want the expanded SEC to move to a nine-game conference schedule like many of the other big conferences are doing. As of now, the league only plays eight conference games, which leaves room for four games against non-conference opponents that can be buy games or other more winnable contests.
That has led to a lot of disagreement within the SEC and around the country, but Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte is in favor of playing nine league games, in part because of the mandatory Red River Rivalry against Oklahoma, via Brett McMurphy of Action Network.
“I’ve always been a proponent of 9 league games because of our Red River game vs. Oklahoma in Dallas,” Del Conte said, per McMurphy.
Playing nine conference games would allow both Texas football and Oklahoma to play four games at home in conference play and four games on the road in league play, to go along with the neutral site game at the Cotton Bowl against the Sooners. Georgia and Florida would have a similar benefit, as they play each year in Jacksonville.
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Other conferences, such as the Big Ten, have already gone to nine conference games, so it would be no surprise to see the SEC follow suit. That change would also give fans more marquee matchups to look forward to throughout the season.
However, it doesn't look like any decision will be made about the possible schedule change at the meetings this week.
“SEC's Greg Sankey said he doesn't believe league will make a decision whether to stay at 8 or go to 9 conference games by conclusion of Thursday's meetings: ‘That's my expectation,'” McMurphy wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Just about every neutral in college football would love to see the SEC go to nine league games for the higher quality of games and the balance between conferences, making it easier to evaluate teams against each other in the College Football Playoff race. While there are definitely some supporters, such as Del Conte and Texas football, in the conference, it will take a lot of convincing to get the change approved.
