Brian Kelly reacts to LSU's annual SEC opponents, Alabama not being included

The Southeastern Conference unveiled how its new nine-game conference scheduling format will look between 2026-29 on Tuesday, along with confirming each SEC team’s three “annual” rivals during the same timeframe. Tuesday’s reveal came as a bit of a shock for LSU fans, many of whom hoped to maintain its yearly rivalry with Alabama.

Unfortunately, the annual nature of the often-contentious Alabama-LSU rivalry — which dates back to 1895 and has been played every year since 1964 — is no more after the SEC announced Arkansas, Ole Miss and Texas A&M would be the Tigers’ “annual” rivals for the next four years. The SEC has said it will re-evalute each team’s three “annual” rivals in four-year windows, meaning things could change in 2030.

The SEC designated Alabama’s annual rivals as Auburn, Tennessee and neighboring Mississippi State, which is located just 80 miles West of Tuscaloosa.

Of course, just because they’re not “annual” opponents doesn’t mean the two longstanding SEC rivals won’t play each other. In Tuesday’s conference schedule release, the SEC revealed Alabama will host LSU in 2026 with the return trip coming two years later in 2028, when the Crimson Tide come to Death Valley.

For his part, fourth-year LSU head coach Brian Kelly doesn’t see any issue with losing the annual game against Alabama, mostly because the two games in 2026 and 2028.

“I’m fine with the way it’s set up, because within four years you’re going to play them home and away,” Kelly said during a press conference Monday. “So you might not get them every year, but you’re going to get them enough where it continues to take the big-game approach to playing Alabama. The way the schedule is set up, I feel really good about what it looks like, and all the teams we’ll get a chance to play in the SEC.”

Just based on recent results, it might be better for LSU to occassionally avoid the Crimson Tide, which has won four of the last five meetings — the lone exception a 32-31 home victory in 2022. In fact, Alabama has dominated the series of late, winning 12 of the last 14 games beginning with the infamous 21-0 rout in the 2011 BCS National Championship game. That championship win began a string of eight-consecutive victories for the Tide in the series before LSU snapped the streak during its memorable 2019 season in which the Tigers went on to win the College Football Playoff national championship behind star quarterback Joe Burrow.