Lane Kiffin has not given much thought on Ole Miss' future SEC permanent opponents
The Southeastern Conference is going to look a little different come the 2024-25 athletic season with the addition of Oklahoma and Texas, who are joining the SEC a year earlier than initially reported.
Due to the SEC expanding from 14 to 16 teams that means a lot of maneuvering with the schedules for every sport moving forward. football is that the top of the list and has been the topic of many discussions.
Since last year during the SEC had its spring meeting in Destin, Florida last year the prevailing favored model is the ‘3-6’ schedule format. In this format each team would have three permanent opponents with six other rotating opponents for a nine-game conference schedule.
Another model discussed is a ‘1-7’ format, which keeps the SEC games to eight in a team’s season schedule. There would be one permanent opponent with seven rotation opponents each year.
None of this has been set in stone yet and with one more college football season this fall between now and then, plenty more discussions will take place.
Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin is not one of the SEC coaches that are spending much time thinking about who the Rebels three permanent opponents could be if the ‘3-6’ model is adopted. In fact, Kiffin has not lost much sleep on the future prospect of his team’s schedule beyond this fall.
“Not a whole lot. That would fall under what I can’t control,” Kiffin said when asked if he has thought about the future SEC schedule format on Tuesday.
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“They’re not going to listen to me on that. So, I’m sure a lot of coaches sit up here and talk about it and waste a lot of time but they’re not going to ask us.”
The SEC announced this past February that the two Big 12 teams will make the early transition starting next summer.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey announced on February 9 that Oklahoma and Texas will become members.
“The presidents and chancellors of the SEC previously voted with unanimous approval to accept the application of Oklahoma and Texas to join the conference on July 1st, 2024, and have now authorized the conference office to proceed with facilitating the transition of Oklahoma and Texas to become full members of the Southeastern Conference on July 1st, 2024,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said in his statement.
Plenty of speculation has gone around about what each SEC team’s permanent football opponents would be, using geographic and rivalry factors in the projections.
For Ole Miss the trio of in-state rival Mississippi State, Arkansas and LSU have been the popular guess. That would eliminate Vanderbilt, which has been the Rebels permanent SEC Eastern Division opponent for decades.
Whichever three teams it becomes Kiffin is not putting too much stock in it as he has more pressing matters to attend to, including wrapping up his third spring practice since coming to Ole Miss.
