In less than a week, the SEC will provide college football fans even more content than they could ever handle. This is because the league will be announcing its nine-game schedule for the 2026 season, as well as each team's three annual opponents. It should be noted that the terminology of annual opponents is being used by the SEC, as opposed to permanent rivals because of its flexible nature.
Anyone with half a brain cell should expect two of Georgia's annual opponents are never going to change. The Dawgs will always play arch rival Florida in The Cocktail Party annually. The SEC is not going to let The Deep South's Oldest Rivalry with Auburn go to the wayside either. While everyone and their brother has opinions about Georgia's third game, this is the one that will not be set in stone.
While it could be Alabama, Kentucky, South Carolina or Tennessee in some machinations of the schedule, expect for it to be either Kentucky or South Carolina for the time being, solely based on the premise of Alabama and Tennessee having so many other rivalries that will need to be kept alive first. Thankfully, there may come a time where either the Kentucky or South Carolina date is swapped out...
It should be noted that this schedule is flexible and these rivalries will be revisited every four seasons.
SEC will announce its 9-game 2026 schedule & each team's 3 rivalry opponents on Tuesday, sources told @On3sports. The SEC is adding a 9th conference game in 2026
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) September 18, 2025
The beautiful part in this is Georgia not going to be stuck with a stale tertiary rivalry for all that long.
The SEC will always make sure Georgia has great conference opponents
Here is the big thing to keep in mind when it comes to the nine-game SEC conference schedule being reviewed every four years. With Oklahoma and Texas joining the league, they want to make sure new rivalries can be created far more regularly than they did when Missouri and Texas A&M first joined the conference back in 2012. Texas A&M came out of this so much better than Missouri did with all of it.
Because Georgia is one of the biggest brands in the SEC, as well as one of its most dominant teams, the league office is not going to allow one of its biggest revenue generators to fail to live up to the bargain in that regard because one of their annual conference opponents is no longer compelling. To be frank, this may not apply to the Auburn and Florida games, just because there is so much history.
In short, should either the Kentucky or South Carolina game become so bland, or potentially even the Alabama or Tennessee game should that be the third game the SEC chooses for Georgia, the league has it built in to revisit this premise. Maybe having Oklahoma or Texas on the schedule is the better way to generate revenue come 2030? We have a long ways to go, but the 3-6 model sure is exciting!
Just because Georgia may not get the third game Dawg Nation wants does not mean that it will stick.