This week the SEC announced the format for its 2025 football schedules. Spoiler alert: it’s basically the same as the 2024 schedules.

Like a crafty college student who figured out how to re-purpose his sophomore political science paper into a junior economics paper by inserting two charts and a graph, the League is going to keep the same eight game schedule from 2024, down to the same opponents, but is craftily switching the home games to away games and vice versa. Teams will also be required to play an out-of-Conference opponent from among the ACC, Big 10, Big XII, PAC-2, or a “major independent.” I assume Notre Dame counts as a major independent. I am less certain about the Coast Guard Academy. We’ll seek clarification from Birmingham.

This is a Georgia Bulldogs site, and obviously we view announcements like this through the prism of Georgia Bulldog fandom. So, let’s begin with a couple of observations through red and black tinted lenses. One, this may be the best Bulldog home schedule of my lifetime from a ticket holder’s perspective. Admittedly the home games against Charlotte and Austin Peay aren’t anything special. But watching Alabama, Texas, and Ole Miss in Sanford Stadium in the same season is top notch stuff, historically speaking.

Second, the schedule is tough, but manageable. We don’t know exact dates, but it’s unlikely that we’d play Bama and Texas back-to-back or even close to each other. And from a recruiting standpoint, it’s possible every five star recruit in America will hit up Athens at some point to take in one of those matchups. That is never a bad thing.

Now, on to the meta-analysis. At first blush, just recycling 2024 and changing only the game locations appears to be a model of laziness. But I think there’s a great deal going on beneath the surface here. Leave aside the fact that this is basically what already happens with divisional play + traditional rivals in the current, outgoing configuration. There are solid reasons for maintaining the status quo, and a logic underlying the scheme.

For one, the league is not going to a nine game conference schedule in 2025 despite many predicting that that would be coming. There are reasons for that both political and pragmatic. Some programs remain nervous that playing nine conference games (and losing the ninth) would knock them out of bowl eligibility. Programs finishing in the lower quartile of the league table still count on those bowl games and bowl money, and know that getting to the postseason reliably quells some of the risk of having to turn over coaches more frequently and more expensively.

Second, even programs contending for the league title are a little wary of the competition level of a nine game conference season combined with a now longer and more grueling playoff arrangement. If you’re Georgia or Alabama, you may not need to schedule Tennessee Tech to get healthy for Mississippi State in week 10. You do need that cupcake game to make sure you still have something in the tank when you have to play Michigan in week 15.

Finally, an eight game schedule preserves some flexibility for future conference expansion. The move toward super-conferences is likely not done. Florida State and Clemson have been rumored as potential SEC additions for two decades now. That will not change, and the ACC powers’ decision to challenge their conference’s grant of rights structure is a clear sign that they want out. It’s equally clear what road they want to leave town on, and it’s the one that leads to the SEC.

It is not entirely clear that the Seminoles and country gentlemen will have concluded their battle with the conference in time for the 2025 season, but I would place the odds greater than 50-50 that both have found a new home by the time toe meets leather in 2026. This schedule preserves the SEC’s ability to integrate one, both, or even more the factors from other conferences for one more year.

In broader terms, that flexibility is probably the overarching concern that led to a continuation of the status quo. Last year the SEC distributed $741 million to conference schools from its deal with ESPN, about $51 million apiece on average. Those who follow the media landscape know the ESPN and its parent company Disney are among the conglomerates currently adrift on a very stormy economic sea. For years astute observers have forecast that the rising balloon of sports media rights couldn’t go up forever. The SEC would want more money from ESPN in exchange for the rights to nine conference games per year rather than eight. But I do not know that ESPN is currently in a position to commit to that additional coin. As we say constantly on this site, the game is now about the money. The TV money to be specific. The games are the league’s product. The SEC is not going to give its most valuable product away for free. So eight games it is until ESPN or someone else is willing to pay for one more.

British political philosopher Edmund Burke is seen as one of the key proponents of classical political conservatism. That is, Burke’s position was that change always brings with it some risk that things could be made worse, and should therefore be approached with trepidation. Of course, if like Burke you lived among the wealthy aristocracy at the apex of one of the world’s then greatest empires you too would be a big fan of keeping it status quo. You don’t mess with a good thing for no reason. If you were the person who shined Edmund Burke’s boots for a penny before going home to your cramped hovel for a dinner of gruel with a side of typhus fever you might feel differently.

The SEC currently finds itself in a similar geopolitical situation to the Burkian gentlefolk. It’s good to be the SEC in college football‘s current configuration. The league has no reason to experiment at this point. Constituent schools can continue to cash large checks, and the league office isn’t particularly worried about being poached by its rivals. The college football landscape faces uncertainty from NIL, labor relations issues, and media economics. But whatever dangers are out there will come for the Sun Belt, MAC, and even the Big XII long before they reach SEC headquarters.

Because of this, I don’t think the SEC 2025 football scheduling configuration indicates that the league is scared to move forward. Rather, I think it means they feel that they have found a good place to bunker down and keep an eye on the storm.

Until later…

Go ‘Dawgs!!!