The three best programs in the SEC are Texas, Alabama and Georgia. These three programs will likely continue to dominate the conference for the foreseeable future, but the SEC made life easier for two of these teams.
As everyone knows, Texas joined the SEC in 2024. And ever since they did the conference has coddled them by giving them a much easier schedule than Georgia. But after the latest schedule announcement from the SEC, it's clear that the conference went out of their way to make life much easier for Texas and Alabama compared to Georgia.
SEC gives Alabama, Texas the gift of a lifetime
Beginnning in 2024 when the Longhorns joined the conference, the SEC made sure to gift them an easy schedule. That trend continued on Tuesday when the SEC announced future conference schedules through the 2029 season.
It becomes very apparent this is the case when looking at their schedules from 2024-2026.
When looking at those three seasons, Texas only has to play Alabama and Georgia twice in the regular season. Those two games just so happen to be against UGA (2024 and 2025). So the Longhorns don't have to play Georgia or Alabama in 2026 and somehow got to avoid playing Alabama altogether until 2027.
Alabama's schedule isn't much harder either as they only play Georgia and Texas three times in those three seasons. And once again it just so happens that all three games are against Georgia with two of them being at home.
The Bulldogs however got the short end of the stick because they play Alabama and Texas five times during these three regular seasons. This includes a whopping three road games as well as UGA traveled to both teams last season and will play at Alabama in 2026.
The SEC would likely claim this special treatment was unintentional, but it seems pretty clear that they wanted to make life as easy as possible for their new powerhouse program in Texas and their most storied program in Alabama.