MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. – SEC officials arrived here this week with a goal of zeroing in on a conference schedule format for football for 2026 and beyond. And they probably will leave here Thursday without approving a format.
Two factors continue to hold up a vote on a schedule format.
One: There’s not consensus behind a model. Some stakeholders want to stay at eight games. Others want to move to nine. Generally, the SEC’s coaches sound mostly interested in staying at eight, while the conference’s athletic directors seem to leave the door cracked a little wider toward nine. But, even within those groups, there’s not consensus.
LSU’s Brian Kelly said he’d favor nine conference games. Arkansas’ Sam Pittman prefers eight.
Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte would like nine, but he acknowledged he doesn’t speak for the room.
Back and forth the Ping-Pong ball goes.
The other element delaying the vote? The SEC is not up against a hard deadline. The conference’s 2025 schedule is set, and it retains some runway to drag out the decision for 2026. Amid the pandemic in 2020, the SEC scrapped its schedule and devised a new one less than six weeks before kickoff.
Don’t expect the SEC to repeat that 2020 timeline, but also don’t expect that all these diverging opinions will coalesce behind a solution within the conference’s spring meetings that end here Thursday.
Also affecting the decision: The College Football Playoff format for 2026 and beyond remains undecided, and multiple SEC coaches and administrators expressed reluctance to decide the conference schedule model until more information comes to light about the future playoff format and selection process.
Even Kelly, a proponent of nine conference games, says he’d slow-play this conference schedule vote, if it were up to him, and not give up that chip before knowing more about the playoff’s future.
The SEC has considered increasing to nine conference games for many years but consistently stayed at eight. The Big Ten and Big 12 play nine conference games. The ACC plays eight.
Around the conference, there remains “a variety of perspectives,” Sankey said.
“Some would say, ‘Let’s just go play nine games. More SEC games is better,’’ Sankey said. ‘Some would say, ‘Wait a second, I’m looking at bowl qualification, and it’s going to be harder to get to that six-win threshold as I build my program.’
“And then you have some who look at last year and say, ‘Our interpretation is, under the current selection criteria, losing weighs more (on the committee’s decision) than winning a solid game. Losing a game is more problematic, and until we have a better understanding on the future criteria or entry points for the CFP, we’re not willing to go to nine games.’
“I think those are three philosophies, but I think there are some who are ready to go to (nine).”
A majority vote would be required to reach a decision.
Will the SEC break camp on Thursday without making a decision?
“That’s my expectation,” Sankey said on “The Paul Finebaum Show.”
And, so, the can is kicked, a little further down the road. In the past, this familiar road always ends at eight.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.
