The Southeastern Conference’s announcement of staying at eight conference football games for the 2024 season, despite the addition of Texas and Oklahoma, will none-the-less bring schedule changes for the University of Missouri.
Specifically, the changes for Mizzou will come more from the elimination of the “SEC East” and “SEC West” divisions. Some of the advantages of that format for the Tigers, namely losing two-time defending national champion Georgia along with surging Tennessee on its yearly schedule, could be tempered by MU losing more winnable divisional games against the likes of Vanderbilt.
Missouri’s eight SEC games in 2024 will come from a group of 15 potential opponents, as Texas and Oklahoma bring their big brands and talented rosters into the conference on July 1, 2024. The eight-game format also means that Missouri will see one set “rivalry” opponent, with the expectation that border rival Arkansas will remain that foe.
Non-conference opponents, and the contracts involved in scheduling such games, should remain solid at Mizzou, with the Tigers set to host Murray State, Buffalo, and Boston College, with a road trip to UMass to complete a 12-game regular season slate.
While the SEC remains at eight games for 2024, there seems to be growing momentum that a ninth-game could be added by 2025. The schedule discussion will undoubtedly come up again at the SEC Spring Meeting in 2024.
A move to a nine-game schedule would give the 16 Southeastern Conference schools the flexibility of protecting three “rival” matchups on their yearly schedule, but it would also create havoc with non-conference schedules. At Missouri, the Tigers will play hated rival Kansas that year, with a trip to Miami of Ohio, and home games slated against Louisiana and Massachusetts.
The three rival matchups would help the incoming programs at Texas and Oklahoma, as the Longhorns have traditionally important matchups with Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas A&M. For 2024, it appears that Texas wishes to play Texas A&M in league action to renew that dormant in-state rivalry, while keeping Oklahoma in the schedule at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, potentially as a non-conference game. The Texas-Arkansas rivalry has historical significance going back to those programs days in the old Southwest Conference, which disbanded in 1995.
Another complicating factor going to the nine SEC games, three permanent rival model, is the dislike from Alabama of having Auburn, Tennessee, and LSU, three difficult opponents, as their “rivals”, and the want of several league schools to keep non-conference rival games on their schedules, with Kentucky-Louisville, South Carolina-Clemson, Florida-Florida State, and Missouri-Kansas falling under that category.
Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz has been outspoken in being in favor of the nine-game SEC model, as he lobbied for that last week at the SEC Meetings in Florida. South Carolina and Kentucky are among the schools most outspoken against the 9-3 model.
