SEC Football: Is it time to finally switch to nine games?

The SEC will be holding its conference meetings next week and nine conference games for SEC football teams will be on the agenda again. 

There’s been a ton of debate over the past few years about how many conference games SEC football teams are going to play and at league meetings next week, it will be sparked again.

The league has stuck to playing just eight games, while the Big Ten, Big 12, and Pac-12 have expanded to nine games and have been doing that for years.

SEC football teams haven’t followed suit and there have been a number of suggested reasons for that. One of them is potential rivalries. But I don’t think that makes much sense.

The SEC football schedule can allow for three permanent rivals, as well as playing the other teams on a rotating basis. If every team has three rivals each and everyone plays on a rotating basis, that should preserve most rivalries.

I know there will be some SEC football fans that won’t like changing away from the division format but that change is probably coming anyway. Unless the SEC goes to two eight-team divisions, which doesn’t seem to be the way things are headed, change is coming.

Should SEC play nine conference games?

From a fan perspective, more conference games would be much better. When was the last time we saw Georgia and Alabama play in the regular season? Maybe the SEC doesn’t want that to happen and in this four-team playoff era, it does make a little sense.

But once things get changed to 12 teams, the strength of the schedule and the strength of wins will be what really matters. There will be six at-large berths available and it’s easy to see SEC football teams claiming a few of those.

In my eyes, playing more SEC football games will only help. The practice of playing FCS opponents in November should stop too. Nobody wants to see those games.

SEC football fans and college football fans want to see more SEC football games. Plus, when you add in the fact it would create more schedule equality and a better product, it seems like a slam dunk. We’ll have to wait and see though, yet eight just seems unworkable.