There is no doubt the Southeastern Conference adding a ninth league game has increased an already stout inventory and extended the Saturday enjoyment of a couch potato.
The SEC hosted college football’s four highest-rated games last weekend, topped by LSU-Ole Miss, and folks were still talking about Kentucky’s upset win at Texas A&M and Vanderbilt’s frantic finish as this week rolled around.
This Saturday’s schedule will be loaded from noon to midnight, with Texas taking its first trip to Tennessee as Oklahoma makes its first venture to Georgia, yet Ole Miss at Florida may be the best of the bunch.
The ninth league game, which was added this year by both the SEC and the Atlantic Coast Conference, may also have led to this week’s cancellation of the Georgia-Clemson series. The Bulldogs and Tigers, who have campuses roughly 75 miles apart and have squared off 66 times, were scheduled to play four times from 2029 to 2033.
Georgia and Clemson have built-in state rivals — Georgia Tech and South Carolina — that account for their required 10th game against a power conference opponent, but each has been willing to face additional quality foes. Georgia opened with Oregon in 2022 and with Clemson in 2021 and 2024, but Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart was asked on Wednesday’s Southeastern Conference teleconference what it would take for such matchups to return.