Greg Sankey says SEC will ‘look deeply’ at protected rivalries to ensure competive schedules
By Sydney Hunte
Published:
Greg Sankey spoke Saturday about the SEC‘s move to a 9-game conference schedule in 2026. Under the new system, 3 conference games a year will be against protected opponents.
But Sankey noted that after four years, the conference would reevaluate those opponents, reiterating comments he made on Sept. 6.
“When we explored this earlier, the phrase was ‘permanent rival.’ So these are annual rivalry games, and we’ve acknowledged that we’ll go through a four-year cycle and take and examine or look deeply,” he said in Tuscaloosa before Alabama‘s game against Wisconsin.
While some like Alabama-Auburn, Florida–Georgia, and Texas–Oklahoma will easily count as matchups Sankey described during a Week 2 press conference as “not up for debate,” others could come under the microscope.
That’s especially as the SEC works to ensure its teams have as strong a schedule as possible, especially with the College Football Playoff‘s strength of schedule metric debuting in the 2025 season. After the 2029 season, that scheduling matrix will be looked at once more.
“We understand the importance of some of these longstanding rivalries, and then we’ll work to have as equitable a schedule as possible, just given that things change competitively,” Sankey said.
Sydney is an Atlanta-based journalist who has covered everything from SEC and ACC football to MLS, the U.S. men's national soccer team and professional tennis. His work has appeared on such platforms as SB Nation, Cox Media Group and FanSided.
