OXFORD, Mississippi – Well, rest assured that LSU fans will not be funding any billboards proclaiming, “Free The Tigers’ Schedule” near the Southeastern Conference offices in Birmingham, Alabama, any time soon.
Some LSU fans actually paid for “Free Devin White” billboards near the SEC offices off Interstate 65 in 2018 to protest the Tiger linebacker’s ejection for the first half of the Alabama game that season, because he was called for targeting Mississippi State quarterback Nick Fitzgerald in LSU’s previous game.
It was close, but it was the right call. And LSU fans put the billboards up at the wrong offices anyway. It’s an NCAA rule, and those offices are in Indianapolis.
The new SEC football schedule with a record nine league games a year was concocted in the SEC offices in Birmingham in recent weeks and months, and there will be little if any protest from LSU fans. Which begs the question – where’s all this Alabama bias the LSU Nation has been complaining about since God and James Carville know when?
Complete schedules for all 16 SEC teams from 2026-29 included here. https://t.co/3wCCGZYKW1
— Glenn Guilbeau (@SportBeatTweet) September 24, 2025
Not only does LSU not have to play Florida yearly anymore, which former LSU athletic director Joe Alleva and former coach Les Miles passionately and illogically argued for “equitable scheduling” several years ago. They said it was inequitable since Alabama didn’t play Florida often. (Never mind that LSU didn’t play Tennessee often either, while Alabama played Tennessee yearly, and Tennessee and Florida were about the same for the most part from 1992-2023 when the SEC had the East and West divisions.)
Schedules even out over time – short term and long term. And boy, has LSU’s evened out on the weaker side. Celebrate, Joe Alleva!
Now, LSU doesn’t have to play Alabama every year either. That game is off the annual schedule in 2027 for the first time in a regular season since 1963. The Tigers’ new permanent opponents from 2026-29 – with a chance for alterations in the next cycle from 2030-33 – are rising but usually folding Ole Miss, average to above average here and there Texas A&M and often rent-a-win Arkansas.
REVENGE to be in the air when LSU faces trio of former players now at Ole Miss:https://t.co/DvNNbjFoVB
— Glenn Guilbeau (@SportBeatTweet) September 26, 2025
LSU and Ole Miss have played every year since 1933 and often from 1984 through 1931. And their game Saturday (2:30 p.m., ABC) pitting the No. 4 Tigers (4-0, 1-0 SEC) and No. 13 Rebels (4-0, 1-0 SEC) is the third in a row in which both are ranked. It also marks the first time since 1959 that each enters the game with perfect records. But LSU-Alabama replaced LSU-Ole Miss as LSU’s real rivalry game and then some about the time Archie Manning left Ole Miss after the 1970 season.
Ole Miss, Texas A&M and Arkansas have exactly zero SEC championships since 1963 when Ole Miss won its last one. Texas A&M just joined the league in 2012, but has never even played in the SEC Championship Game. Neither has Ole Miss. Arkansas won the SEC West three times, but lost all three SEC Championship Games.
“Thank you, SEC” is the billboard LSU fans should now pay for display in Birmingham near the league offices. I thought the SEC only took care of Alabama. The Status Quo-Eastern Conference, baby.
Of course, it did took care of Alabama, too, and it wasn’t because Nick Saban wanted it that way. The SEC is stuck in the past, but the wrong past, like Alabama-Tennessee hanging as an annual game. Alabama’s three permanent opponents for the time being are Tennessee, Auburn and Mississippi State.
Tennessee hasn’t played in the SEC Championship Game since 2007 and hasn’t won the SEC since 1998 when it won its last national title. Auburn has had four straight losing seasons and hasn’t played in the SEC title game since 2017 and last won the SEC in 2013. And Mississippi State has historically been one of the worst teams in the league, having five losing seasons out of the last nine.
What’s missing from LSU’s and Alabama’s schedule? Alabama and LSU, respectively.
LSU-BAMA BEST RIVALRY IN THE NATION
“The big thing that the SEC lost was the LSU-Alabama rivalry,” Sports Illustrated’s master writer Pat Forde said this week. “And that, quite frankly, has probably been the best rivalry in college football during the Nick Saban era. That will be missed for sure. That every-November clash. Usually a bunch of pro players on each side and a lot of fan furor.”
Forde-Yard Dash, Third Quarter: The SEC did the best it could in maintaining annual rivalries in its 9-game schedule, but LSU-Alabama is an unfortunate casualty. Assessing that and 11 other imperiled rivalries. https://t.co/ZWgIrq8D8K
— Pat Forde (@ByPatForde) September 23, 2025
Funny, the SEC release in explaining its new nine-game schedule and three permanent opponents (for now) said, “Annual opponents were determined with consideration given to traditional rivalries, competitive fairness and geography.”
Alabama and LSU have played annually since 1964. That’s pretty “traditional.” Out of the rivalry in just the last 22 years came nine national champions from the 2003 season through the 2020 season with LSU winning three and Alabama six, two No. 1 vs. No. 2 Games of the Century in 2011 and 2019 and one rare rematch in the same season for the national championship on Jan. 9, 2012.
I’d say that’s a “rivalry.”
And they just tossed it, so LSU can play Arkansas, and Alabama can play Mississippi State every year? LSU and Alabama will still play every other year, but it’s not going to be the same. Saban’s gone, but it likely will still be the game of the SEC in most years.
“And that’s the fault of the leaders of college football,” Forde said. “They have discarded what the fans want and opted instead for TV revenue.”
But the SEC just limited major TV revenue twice out of the next four years by nixing the LSU-Bama annual bloodbath. For the SEC stupidly discarded a TV ratings gold mine every November. The LSU-Alabama game of 2011, for example, drew 20 million viewers and an 11.5 rating – the highest viewership for a non-postseason college football game since 1989. The 2019 game drew a 9.7 rating and 16.6 million viewers – the most viewership for a non-postseason college football game since … you guessed it Greg Sankey, the LSU-Bama game of 2011.
Something could’ve been done differently. It just doesn’t make sense for LSU and Alabama not to play every season.
It also is ridiculous that Ole Miss is suddenly playing Oklahoma every season after playing exactly twice – last year and in the 1999 Independence Bowl – in HISTORY. How does that fit under the scheduling policy of “traditional rivalries” and “geography.” Maybe the SEC needs a Texaco roadmap.
Oxford is still eight hours from Norman. So, Oklahoma is no longer playing Oklahoma State, but it will be playing Ole Miss? That’s freakin’ Bedlam right there.
Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin said it best.
“The Oklahoma is really disappointing,” Kiffin said on the SEC teleconference on Wednesday, and he wasn’t talking about the musical either. “We don’t have anything in common with them – our fans.”
The football teams have played two games, and one was in Shreveport!
“So, that doesn’t make any sense at all,” Kiffin continued. “So, that’s unfortunate with so many great teams we played for a long time here, especially from our SEC West years. So, that’s unfortunate.”
Ole Miss and Arkansas would make more sense than Oklahoma. Or Ole Miss and Auburn. Or Florida, which has Kentucky and South Carolina as annuals for no reason.
“But it is what it is,” said Kiffin, whose other permanents are Mississippi State and border rival LSU.
“The LSU makes sense,” he said. “That’s great. And the other one makes no sense.”
LSU-Texas would have made more sense than LSU-Ole Miss, particularly if you’re eliminating LSU-Alabama. LSU-Texas would be much better than LSU-Arkansas, too, and LSU-Texas A&M. LSU-Texas is new SEC rivalry begging to happen every year. It’s not Ole Miss and Oklahoma?
But let’s give LSU-Ole Miss a chance. These last two LSU-Ole Miss games have been legendary – 55-49 Ole Miss in 2023 and 29-26 LSU in overtime last season.
And today’s game could be a classic as well.
If LSU coach Brian Kelly maintains the type of playoff team it looks like he’ll have this season and if Kiffin finally starts going to the playoffs and remains at Ole Miss and doesn’t go to Florida – which is not as good a job as Ole Miss anymore – this rivalry could be something special like it was in the late 1950s and ’60s.
But it’s not LSU-Alabama, which really made the SEC this century. Then the SEC made it go away every other year?
Stop not making sense, SEC.
If the SEC can get rid of a money making TV bonanza game like LSU-Alabama every two years and still revover the money via other regular season games, which it will even if it tried not to, than the SEC can make another move.
Get rid of the SEC Championship Game that will only grow more and more meaningless with the playoffs now in their second year with 12 teams. That will help “competitive fairness” with other conferences by giving your teams a better chance of making the playoff, because they won’t be playing one more difficult game after already adding a ninth league game.
That would make sense and cents, because more SEC playoff teams would cover up the loss of revenue from eliminating the SEC title game.
So would making LSU-Bama an annual affair … forever.
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