GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
In two seasons out of the next four, LSU and Alabama will not play football in the regular season for the first time since 1959-63 when the two storied combatants last did not meet.
One of the Southeastern Conference’s best annual rivalries this century – LSU and Alabama – will not have one another as annual foes in two seasons of the first four-year period of the new nine-game scheduling format from 2026-29. SEC teams have played eight opponents each since 1992 when the league went to two divisions of six teams apiece, then went to 14 teams with seven in each division in 2012.
The SEC went to 16 teams by adding Texas and Oklahoma and eliminated divisions before the 2024 season. Each of the 16 SEC teams will have three permanent opponents from 2026-29 to be re-evaluated every four years. For LSU, those three will be Arkansas, Texas A&M and Ole Miss, starting in 2026, according to numerous national reports on Monday.
BRIAN KELLY COMMENTS ON FUTURE SEC SCHEDULES
“I’m fine with the way it’s set up because within four years, you’re going to play them home and away,” Kelly said when asked about no longer having Alabama as an annual opponent. “You’re not going to get them every year, but you’re going to get them enough where it continues to take the big game approach to playing Alabama.”
Kelly and his No. 15 Tigers beat No. 6 Alabama and then-coach Nick Saban, 32-31, in overtime at Tiger Stadium on Nov. 5, 2022, in an ESPN prime time game for his first and only win over Alabama and Saban in Kelly’s first season at LSU.
“The way the schedule is set up, I feel really good about what it looks like and all the teams that we’re going to get a chance to play in the SEC,” Kelly said.
Alabama and LSU are expected to play twice from 2026-29, but the years of those pairings will not be announced by the SEC office until Tuesday from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. on ESPN2 and the SEC Network. The two games (home and home) in four years may also not be consecutive. The SEC will announce the schedules for all 16 teams for 2026-29 with game sites on Tuesday. Dates will be announced in December.
LSU and Alabama have met in every regular season from 1964 through 2024 and play this season on Nov. 8 at Alabama.
LSU AND TEXAS SHOULD PLAY EVERY YEAR
Texas is a natural border rival perfect for LSU, but the SEC has decided to live too much in the past.
Under the SEC’s new format, each program will play three permanent opponents “focused on maintaining many traditional rivalries,” the league office stated. But the SEC missed the LSU-Alabama “traditional rivalry” on an annual basis.
Each team’s remaining six games will rotate among the remaining conference schools. This plan has each SEC team playing every SEC program at least once every two years and every opponent home and away in four years, but not necessarily consecutively.
That is better than the system used from 1992 through this season as some SEC schools have gone more than a decade without playing certain SEC teams or without playing at certain SEC sites. The league also weirdly clinged to strange annual games with no history or any semblance of a rivalry or even remotely close locations, such as South Carolina and Texas A&M.
SEC teams will also now be required to schedule at least one non-conference opponent from the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big Ten or the Big 12 or Notre Dame each season. Clemson comes to LSU next season on Sept. 5.
The SEC will be losing in certain years its best ratings bonanza game for most of the 2000s in LSU vs. Alabama, which featured six top five pairings in an unequaled 15-year span in the league – 2005, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2018 and 2019. That run included two No. 1 vs. No. 2 Games of the Century. No. 1 LSU won 9-6 in overtime in Tuscaloosa on Nov. 5, 2011, and again as No. 1 on Nov. 9, 2019, by 46-41.
There were also eight top 10 pairings in the series from 2005-19. From 2003 through 2020, LSU (3) and Alabama (6) combined to win nine national championships. And LSU played in a fourth national title game over that span in the 2011 season, losing to Alabama, 21-0, in New Orleans.
From 2011 through 2018, every LSU-Alabama game was selected for prime time, and from 2020-24.
The three annual opponents for all 16 SEC schools follow:
Alabama – Auburn, Tennessee, Mississippi State
Arkansas – Missouri, Texas, LSU
Auburn – Georgia, Alabama, Vanderbilt
Florida – Georgia, South Carolina, Kentucky
Georgia – Auburn, Florida, South Carolina
Kentucky – South Carolina, Tennessee, Florida
LSU – Arkansas, Ole Miss, Texas A&M
Mississippi State – Ole Miss, Alabama, Vanderbilt
Missouri – Arkansas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma
Oklahoma – Texas, Ole Miss, Missouri
Ole Miss – Mississippi State, LSU, Oklahoma
South Carolina – Georgia, Kentucky, Florida
Tennessee – Alabama, Vanderbilt, Kentucky
Texas – Texas A&M, Arkansas, Oklahoma
Texas A&M – Texas, LSU, Missouri
Vanderbilt – Tennessee, Mississippi State, Auburn
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