With a 9-game conference schedule coming in 2026, the SEC is set to announce each team's three annual opponents on Tuesday.
However, on Monday On3's Chris Low revealed the list, which can be seen as below. As a reminder, the 3-6 format will see each team play three opponents annually (more on that below), and rotate through the remaining 12 schools every two years. This will allow each team to play on all 15 opposing campuses once every four years.
Alabama: Auburn, Mississippi State, Tennessee
Arkansas: LSU, Missouri, Texas
Auburn: Alabama, Georgia, Vanderbilt
Florida: Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina
Georgia: Auburn, Florida, South Carolina
Kentucky: Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee
LSU: Arkansas, Ole Miss, Texas A&M
Ole Miss: LSU, Mississippi State, Oklahoma
Mississippi State: Alabama, Ole Miss, Vanderbilt
Missouri: Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas A&M
Oklahoma: Ole Miss, Missouri, Texas
South Carolina: Florida, Georgia, Kentucky
Tennessee: Alabama, Kentucky, Vanderbilt
Texas: Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas A&M
Texas A&M: LSU, Missouri, Texas
Vanderbilt: Auburn, Mississippi State, Tennessee
It's important to note that these are annual opponents, not permanent ones. The conference is reserving the right to juggle the matchups every four years.
As it is, the SEC attempted to juggle history and competitive balance in selecting each team's annual opponents. Certain celebrated rivalry games, like Alabama-LSU and Florida-Tennessee, will no longer be annual contests, at least not over the next four years. It remains to be seen if, for instance, Ole Miss-Oklahoma or Missouri-Texas A&M "stick" as annual opponents beyond this 4-year cycle, but at the same time it's hard to imagine Texas playing anyone other than Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas A&M on an annual basis. Moving to the 9-game format allowed the conference to save annual games like Auburn-Georgia, Texas-Texas A&M and Alabama-Tennessee, each of which would have become twice-every-four-year affairs had the conference remained at eight games. SEC teams are still required to play at least one non-conference opponent from a Power 4 league or Notre Dame as well.
The conference will also announce each team's full set of SEC opponents in Tuesday night's show, airing 7 p.m. ET on SEC Network and ESPN2. While dates of games will not be revealed, the conference will reveal each team's slate of opponents and locations. As part of the new 9-game arrangement, teams will alternate between four and five conference home games.