Mitch Barnhart states there is 'no mystery' what SEC schedule size he prefers

With the 2025 season on the horizon, the SEC is unsure how future scheduling will work. No decision has been made on how many conference games will be played moving forward. Staying at eight games or bumping the total up to nine are the two options, likely depending on what the College Football Playoff looks like moving forward.

Some programs have not fully given their thoughts on the situation. Kentucky is not one of them, at least when it comes to athletic director Mitch Barnhart. He once again made his stance quite clear in a recent press conference.

“Eight-nine debate, there’s no mystery where I stand on eight-nine,” Barnhart said. “Eight is better for Kentucky. Obviously, there’s financial components to it, there’s competitive components to it. There’s components to it as it relates to our ability to have seven home games or eight home games.”

Kentucky is in a situation a few other SEC teams are, having an end-of-year rivalry against an ACC school. Louisville is on the schedule every single year, alternating venues. Going to nine SEC games would mean UK is going up against 10 power conference opponents a season, no matter what.

Barnhart really hammered home the importance of having eight home games, though. It would certainly fall under the previously discussed “financial components” he mentioned. You could even argue more games inside Kroger Field are better for Kentucky from a competitive standpoint too.

“We’ve been fortunate about every two-plus years, we’re able to have eight home games because Mark Hill does an unbelievable job scheduling with our football staff, putting things together for us to have eight home football games. If we have nine conference games, the chances of doing something like that get a little bit harder for us…

“If we got to nine, that means every other year, we have five conference games on the road and four conference games at home. So then, you only have three nonconference games. You begin to do the math of how all that comes together for Kentucky, that’s where we’ve got to be really thoughtful about what we do.”

This upcoming season will only provide seven games in Lexington. Playing at Louisville tips the scales away from Kentucky, with four SEC and three nonconference games being at home. Not something that will happen every year but Barnhart believes moving to nine SEC contests would hurt his program moving forward.