SEC softens up, axes classic rivalries in new scheduling plan.

The SEC built its reputation on bruising, tradition-rich rivalries, but the conference’s latest scheduling shift feels like an NFL knockoff gone wrong.

With nine-game slates on the horizon, word has already leaked that Alabama-LSU, Florida-Tennessee, Georgia-Tennessee, and Florida-LSU are being scrapped as permanent fixtures. For decades, those games shaped national title races and defined programs. Alabama, Florida, and LSU all collected championships while navigating those gauntlets.

Now, in the name of “fairness,” the SEC will reshuffle permanent rivals every four years. Permanent, apparently, doesn’t mean permanent. It means convenient.

College football’s DNA has always been rivalries—Florida-Tennessee in the ’90s, Alabama-LSU in the 2000s, and Rivalry Week every fall. Those games are the fuel that turned a regional sport into the country’s second-biggest TV draw.

By softening its backbone, the SEC risks losing what made it singular: a league built not on balance sheets and TV slots, but on the raw energy of traditions fans never wanted to see tampered with.