SEC nonconference scheduling, like the conference schedule, is in flux (2024)

Some athletic directors have a big board, a la an NFL Draft war room, where they map out their future football schedules. Others keep lists on their laptops or phones. Joe Castiglione, who has been Oklahoma’s athletic director since 1998, is a little more old school: He keeps a calendar book in his desk.

“It’s handy. I have quick access to it,” Castiglione said.

These days, Castiglione tends to reach for that book less frequently. Or at least he’s writing opponents in pen much less frequently.

The Sooners scheduled aggressively out of the Big 12. They want to keep doing that in the SEC. But like everyone, they’re treading cautiously because they’re in the land of unknowns. Will teams have three or four nonconference games come 2026? Will it be good for College Football Playoff selection to play tougher games, win or lose, or will those games just add an unnecessary potential loss?

And what will conference affiliation look like? Florida State and Clemson are suing the ACC. Those are two programs that schedule SEC teams, and whatever happens with them, it could have a domino effect on the ACC and conference realignment in general.

Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek and Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne each described nonconference scheduling as a “holding pattern” until the conference figures things out.

“I think everyone’s in somewhat similar boats,” Yurachek said, “where you have your three or four games slotted in for the next three or four years, and then beyond that you may not be scheduling as many in advance until you see how not only our conference schedule turns out but how college football shakes out in the future.”

A few years ago, Georgia was among the leaders in tougher scheduling. Kirby Smart scheduled series against Ohio State, Clemson, Florida State, Oklahoma and Texas, among others. But that was before SEC expansion and before the prospect of an SEC nine-game schedule.

Now Georgia is tapping the brakes: A home-and-home series with UCLA scheduled for 2025-26 is now in doubt, with athletic director Josh Brooks recently telling a radio station, “We’ll see,” when asked if it will happen. Brooks declined further comment, but the quote was ominous for anyone hoping to see the series happen.

Georgia’s possible reluctance on the game is instructive: At the time the series was scheduled — almost a decade ago — it was a no-brainer for Georgia. And even now its fans would be disappointed not to get the trip to Los Angeles and the Rose Bowl next year. But Brooks and Smart could see two games with UCLA as a high-risk, low-reward. (UCLA, meanwhile, is dealing with a nine-game Big Ten schedule, for anyone looking for its reasons to want out of the game.)

But Georgia, Alabama and other SEC teams were beefing up their nonconference schedules in a world where they did not have Oklahoma and Texas as conference opponents twice every four years with a conference that had divisions. The marquee games were seen as a way to boost interest in home schedules that, under the old SEC format, were becoming too bland.

The non-division format changes that. That doesn’t mean nobody will look for hard games anymore. There’s no doubt that fans and television executives like the marquee games. That’s why Arkansas is eagerly keeping its home-and-home series with Notre Dame, with the teams playing in Fayetteville next year and in South Bend in 2028.

“Fans, more and more, want to see these marquee games, especially in your stadium,” Yurachek said. “And the way you get these marquee games is home-and-home series. And you want to set yourself up to potentially get in the 12-team Playoff. Whether that gravitates to 14 teams, you want to put your program in the best position possible for that to happen. Time will tell what that looks like, what your schedule has to look like. We have very little data … until we go into those 12-team playoffs going forward.”

But even that is hard to gauge. Castiglione has been on the selection committee and said that while schedule strength is a factor, it’s hard to say how it will be in an expanded Playoff, and that could vary from year to year.

“(What) if a team has had a great season and played the toughest schedule in the season and has marquee wins but ends up with a 9-3 record?” he said. “You know, three losses, but they also have good wins to balance it out, versus another team that ends up 11-1. How is that going to be discussed?”

That’s hard to know until at least one season has been played in the expanded format. But even then, it could be too small of a sample size. Still, the biggest issue in the short term for SEC schedule-makers is whether teams have three or four openings on their nonconference schedule.

The debate about eight versus nine conference games hangs over everything but largely has receded to the background. Some people are just tired of the debate. The reality of the new format has given caution to some of the coaches and athletic directors who were in favor of nine. There was also the departure of Ross Bjork, who as Texas A&M athletic director was one of the strongest voices in favor of going to nine.

Castiglione is a proponent of going to nine games. Arkansas would still vote for eight, Yurachek confirmed. But in separate interviews, they each used the term “robust debate.”

“It’s just not as simple as adding another conference game,” Castiglione said. “Because one has to consider how it impacts everybody’s schedule, how it impacts the postseason, how those elements are going to be viewed in the (selection) committee room when the teams are ranked. It doesn’t mean for or against; it’s just being very thoughtful and thorough for how we work through the whole discussion.”

Yurachek suggested the SEC could again punt and put together a two-year schedule for 2026-27 with eight games, the same way it ended up doing for 2024-25.

“You’re going to look at a similar timing for the ’26 schedule where it will be somewhere in early ’25 where we will decide what we will do in ’26,” Yurachek said. “And then we can probably marry ’26 and ’27 together.”

Whenever it’s decided, it will have a domino effect on nonconference scheduling.

Ten SEC teams (including Oklahoma and Texas) have series that begin in 2025, when the SEC is using an eight-game conference schedule, and finish in 2026 or later, when it could be nine games. Those series include Alabama-Florida State (2025-26), LSU-Clemson (2025-26), Texas-Ohio State (2025-26) and Ole Miss-USC (2025-26).

There are even more series that begin after 2026:

• Alabama has home-and-home series with West Virginia (2026-27), Ohio State (2027-28), Oklahoma State (2028-29) and Notre Dame (2029-30), and then ensuing ones with Georgia Tech, Arizona, Minnesota, Boston College and Virginia Tech.

• Georgia has series with Louisville (2026-27), Florida State (2027-28), Clemson (2029-30), Ohio State (2030-31) and NC State (2033-34).

• Florida has series with NC State (2026-32), California (2026-27), Colorado (2028-29), Notre Dame (2031-32) and Arizona State (2028-31).

The examples go on. Every SEC team has at least one such series. It’s an SEC rule that every team must schedule at least one other power-conference team, and some have more. From there, filling out the schedule comes down to wanting more home games, which is why guarantee games against Group of 5 and FCS teams aren’t going away.

But the marquee matchups aren’t, either.

Oklahoma, one of the two new teams on the block, comes in with a big one: Michigan goes to Norman next year, with the return trip to Ann Arbor in 2026. There is no danger of that series being canceled, according to Castiglione. He has home-and-home series set with Nebraska (2029-30) and Clemson (2035-36).

There’s also the looming question of whether Bedlam will be renewed. Castiglione said he remains open to playing Oklahoma State “at the next available opportunity,” but he added that won’t be until 2030 at the earliest for scheduling reasons.

Still, for all the unknowns, Castiglione hopes to reach into his desk, pull out that schedule and write some good matchups in pen. Perhaps Oklahoma State, perhaps another Michigan or Clemson.

“As a college football fan, I want to see more great matchups,” Castiglione said. “The more the better. But we also have to be wise to think about how it impacts the ability to play as far into the postseason as possible. I still like the (harder) nonconference schedule approach. But I understand those wanting to make a good decision about getting more information before anything is finalized.”

(Top photos of Kirby Smart, Kalen DeBoer and Steve Sarkisian: Mady Mertens, Gary Cosby Jr., John David Mercer / USA Today)

Seth Emerson is a senior writer for The Athletic covering Georgia and the SEC. Seth joined The Athletic in 2018 from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and also covered the Bulldogs and the SEC for The Albany Herald from 2002-05. Seth also covered South Carolina for The State from 2005-10. Follow Seth on Twitter @SethWEmerson