The Oklahoma Sooners are just three seasons into their SEC era, and their schedule has changed a lot since OU joined the conference.
Beginning this season, the league moved from eight to nine conference games per year, dropping the number of non-league games per year from four to three. The conference still requires each team to play at least one non-league game against another Power Four school in either the Big Ten, the ACC, the Big 12, or Notre Dame.
For the first two seasons of OU and Texas being in the SEC (2024 and 2025), the league put together a schedule that simply had the same opponents playing each other with the locations flipped from Year 1 to Year 2. It meant a lot of teams didn't play each other for those two years, and it meant a lot of scheduling
imbalance, especially for the newcomers.
The nine-game schedule brought a new arrangement. Beginning in 2026 and running through 2029, the SEC ensured that each school would visit and host every other school once for that four-year stretch. To make that work, the league set aside three annual rivals that each school will play every year, hosting and visiting each rival twice over four years.
This is especially relevant for the Oklahoma Sooners this week, as they gear up for their third straight matchup against the Ole Miss Rebels. The SEC named Ole Miss one of OU's annual rivals, despite no history between the two schools. The Sooners have history with their other two annual opponents (Texas and Missouri), but facing Ole Miss each year raised eyebrows when the SEC made the announcement. In OU's first six years in the SEC, it'll face the Rebs six consecutive times.
Today, we'll revisit each SEC team's annual opponents, as the first of four seasons of this arrangement is well underway.
Alabama Crimson Tide
- Auburn (The Iron Bowl)
- Mississippi State (The Battle for Highway 82)
- Tennessee (The Third Saturday in October)
Arkansas Razorbacks
- LSU (The Battle for the Golden Boot)
- Missouri (The Battle Line Rivalry)
- Texas
Auburn Tigers
- Alabama (The Iron Bowl)
- Georgia (The Deep South's Oldest Rivalry)
- Vanderbilt
Florida Gators
- Georgia (The World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party)
- Kentucky
- South Carolina
Georgia Bulldogs
- Auburn (The Deep South's Oldest Rivalry)
- Florida (The World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party)
- South Carolina
Kentucky Wildcats
- Florida
- South Carolina
- Tennessee
LSU Tigers
- Arkansas (The Battle for the Golden Boot)
- Ole Miss (The Magnolia Bowl)
- Texas A&M
Mississippi State Bulldogs
- Alabama (The Battle for Highway 82)
- Ole Miss (The Egg Bowl)
- Vanderbilt
Missouri Tigers
- Arkansas (The Battle Line Rivalry)
- Oklahoma
- Texas A&M
Oklahoma Sooners
- Missouri
- Ole Miss
- Texas (The Red River Rivalry)
Ole Miss Rebels
- LSU (The Magnolia Bowl)
- Mississippi State (The Egg Bowl)
- Oklahoma
South Carolina Gamecocks
- Florida
- Georgia
- Kentucky
Tennessee Volunteers
- Alabama (The Third Saturday in October)
- Kentucky
- Vanderbilt
Texas Longhorns
- Arkansas
- Oklahoma (The Red River Rivalry)
- Texas A&M (The Lone Star Showdown)
Texas A&M Aggies
- LSU
- Missouri
- Texas (The Lone Star Showdown)
Vanderbilt Commodores
- Auburn
- Mississippi State
- Tennessee
Notable SEC rivalries that won't be played annually from 2026 to 2029
- Alabama-Florida
- Alabama-Georgia
- Alabama-LSU
- Alabama-Ole Miss
- Arkansas-Texas A&M (The Southwest Classic)
- Auburn-Florida
- Auburn-LSU
- Auburn-Ole Miss
- Florida-LSU
- Florida-Tennessee
- Georgia-Tennessee
- Kentucky-Vanderbilt
- LSU-Mississippi State
- Ole Miss-Vanderbilt
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This article originally appeared on Sooners Wire: Who is each SEC team playing annually?
