Greg Sankey announces SEC planning to dissolve divisions once Texas, Oklahoma join league

Say goodbye to the two-division structure for scheduling, SEC fans.

According to SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, the system is going out the window when Texas and Oklahoma join the conference in the July of 2025, per Emily Adams of the Greenville News.

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“Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey said Thursday that SEC football plans to eliminate the two-division structure for football scheduling once Texas and Oklahoma join the conference on July 1, 2025,” reported Adams. “The SEC currently consists of two seven-team divisions, East and West. Oklahoma and Texas, which will become two of the westernmost schools in the conference, make continuing that system a challenge.”

“Sankey said the SEC is waiting on other factors like potential College Football Playoff expansion and the Big Ten media agreement to make final scheduling decisions. The Big Ten has also decided to expand west, adding current Pac-12 members Southern California and UCLA for 2024.”

As Adams wrote, Sankey mentioned a bevy of factors in his decision, including the expansion College Football Playoff and the future changes to the Big Ten.

Additionally, Sankey also stated that the 2025 schedule and beyond will likely feature conference-wide showdowns, which will set up some fascinating, never-before-seen showdowns throughout the season, per Adams.

“We right now are not thinking about maintaining a two-division format for football scheduling in the SEC,” Sankey said, via Adams. “It would potentially be one single division with the idea that we want to rotate our teams through our campuses more frequently.

“We have big brands with big interest and large following … that want to go to places like Fayetteville, Arkansas or have their fans come to Columbia, South Carolina.”

Moreover, Sankey elaborated on his reasoning, harkening back to the ratings the conference received when teams played a conference-only slate during the 2020 season due to restrictions brought on by an ongoing pandemic.

“During the pandemic we played 10 conference games and had on our SEC Network the highest viewership we had ever experienced,” Sankey said, per Adams. “We drew people in by playing each other with greater frequency.”

Alas, Greg Sankey has drawn a line in the sand regarding scheduling in the future, and it’s hard not to get excited as more information comes to light. The SEC is looking to be more exciting — and more competitive — than ever in the near future.