Let's hope this isn't the SEC's real plan for Kentucky's fixed opponents

The realignment of the Southeastern Conference and its yet-to-be-named system for permanent rivals are hot topics around the college football side of the league as spring practice begins next week. Soon, the SEC will have to announce how it plans to work Texas and Oklahoma into its annual conference scheduling for 2024 and right now the presumed model for a 16-team league is to play nine league games instead of eight and to give each team three permanent rivals to play each season. The 3-6 model, they’re calling it, is up against a 1-7 eight-game schedule featuring one permanent and seven rotating opponents.

Adding to the speculation of the nine-game, three-rival model, Nick Saban leaked that Alabama already knows its three fixed opponents for a 3-6. Saban told Sports Illustrated, “I’ve always been an advocate for playing more games. But if you play more games, I think you have to get the three fixed right. They’re giving us Tennessee, Auburn, and LSU. I don’t know how they come to that.”

For Kentucky’s purposes, we’ve long speculated that Kentucky will likely end up with Tennessee and then maybe two from a pool of South Carolina, Vanderbilt, and Missouri–in part because of location and the SEC East history, but also because it’s a pool of teams without obvious conference rivals to include first.

Any combination of those teams would a favorable draw for the Wildcats, too.

Unfortunately, today Sports Illustrated’s Ross Dellenger tweeted a completely different three-pack for Kentucky Football’s future, one that names Georgia, Mississippi State, and South Carolina as the annual fixed opponents.

No thank you.

🍻 pic.twitter.com/e2Tp3B7wBv

— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) March 3, 2023

Dellenger did not provide any context to his 3-6 lineup for the SEC (unless you know what the beer emoji means) but he’s a name that can be trusted. He’s also the one who spoke to Saban and wrote SI’s new story about the SEC’s schedule changes.

So unless you like the idea of playing Georgia in football every year and traveling to Starkville every other year, let’s hope he is speculating and not leaking the actual format the SEC selected.