Tennessee will play at Alabama this Saturday, and the Crimson Tide will visit the Volunteers in 2024.
There are no guarantees that the Vols will venture to Tuscaloosa two years from now.
The Southeastern Conference implemented an eight-game bridge schedule within the league for next football season, when Oklahoma and Texas join to form a 16-member collection. The SEC has yet to announce whether it will move forward with an eight-game format featuring one permanent opponent and seven rotating foes or a nine-game model with three annual opponents and six teams that would rotate.
In either scenario, every conference team would play every other team two times over a four-year period, but Alabama coach Nick Saban strongly hinted last Thursday night on his radio show that the SEC already had reached its decision.
“The way we’re going to do our seven-team rotation, one-team fixed is that you’re going to play everybody every four years,” Saban said, “so almost every guy at your school is going to get to play every team in the conference, which I think is great.”