STARKVILLE — When the dust finally settled, the Southeastern Conference decided to stand pat — for now.
Following three days of discussions at SEC spring meetings this week in Destin, Florida, college football’s most prominent league opted against moving to a nine-game conference schedule, and continue with its eight-game model for 2024, when the league expands to 16 teams with the additions of Texas and Oklahoma.
Gone are the days of divisions, but everything else pretty much stays the same. The SEC’s top and secondary rivalries will still be played and programs won’t be tied down to three annual opponents, as would have been the case with a nine-game schedule.
For Mississippi State, this is a best-case scenario.
The Bulldogs were one of nine SEC programs to vote in favor of keeping the status quo. The others – Florida, Georgia, LSU, Missouri, and Texas A&M – wanted a change.
Eight teams, excluding Texas and Oklahoma, who’s athletic leaders attended this week’s meetings but don’t yet have a vote, needed to approve the nine-game conference schedule.
MSU’s football future aligned better with an eight-game model.
Its biggest game, the annual Egg Bowl rivalry against Ole Miss, will be protected. The Bulldogs and Rebels have played 117 times since 1901, and is the 10th-longest uninterrupted rivalry in the sport.
That won’t be changing.
MSU may lose some of its other SEC West rivalries, if an eight-game schedule becomes a long-term plan beyond the 2024 season. That would mean potentially fewer games against Alabama, who the Bulldogs haven’t beaten since 2007 and LSU, who MSU has beaten three times since 2000, and Auburn, who has beaten the Bulldogs 65 times in the series’ 96-game history, among other more recent annual matchups against Kentucky, Arkansas, and Texas A&M.
Doesn’t sound so bad, does it?
So does the fact that MSU’s athletic department won’t have to reschedule or cancel any non-conference games on future schedules, which would likely have been the case had the league moved to nine games.
An extra SEC game would open the Bulldogs to an extra loss, and potentially limit their path to the new 12-team College Football Playoff.
MSU also has non-conference Power Five home-and-homes scheduled against Arizona State (2024-25), Minnesota (2026-27), Texas Tech (2028-29) and Washington State (2030-31). Those annual Power Five matchups are now a requirement under Thursday’s approved schedule format.
Many of those games would likely have been rescheduled, without any monetary ramifications, or canceled altogether, which could cost the school upwards of $1 million, according to a source within the athletic department.
Staying put saves MSU money. It saves MSU potential losses, too.
For now, it made too much sense not to do it.
Justin Frommer is the Mississippi State sports reporter for The Dispatch.
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