LSU to not play former SEC West rivals in 2024, first time in decades

The SEC added some much-needed juice to the college football offseason on Wednesday evening. They released the 2024 schedules for all the different schools in the league–including the recently added Oklahoma Sooners and the Texas Longhorns. 2024 will be their inaugural seasons in the SEC and we’ll get to find out rather quickly if both teams can compete at a high level in their new home. Naturally, with the addition of two new schools, some games simply didn’t make the cut.

There were a couple of rivalries for the LSU Tigers that found themselves on the chopping block, we learned on the SEC Network schedule reveal show on Wednesday night. One of the biggest games we learned about was that LSU and Auburn will not play each other. The last time that happened was over three decades ago in 1991. The rivalry will be taking a year off.

There’s also another SEC West rivalry game that won’t be played for LSU football in 2024. For the first time in 80 years, the Tigers will not be playing the Mississippi State Bulldogs. The Bulldogs didn’t field a team that season because of World War 2. LSU has played MSU 116 times, more than any other team. Scott Rabalais of The Advocate doesn’t think the two teams will be annual opponents in the future. We’ll have to see if that’s the case.

Greg McElroy believes LSU has the most manageable schedule during the 2024 season

The 2024 SEC schedule reveal show shared some intriguing matchups between new and old rivals, but college football analyst Greg McElroy actually believes LSU‘s 2024 conference schedule could benefit them in the long run.

LSU will host Alabama, Oklahoma, Ole Miss and Vanderbilt and will travel to Arkansas, Florida, South Carolina and Texas A&M. McElroy called it the most manageable in the SEC in 2024.

“The SEC did a phenomenal job of creating competitive equity, but I think LSU, however, has a fairly manageable schedule,” McElroy said. “Of course, you have Alabama at home. That’s a tricky one … [Alabama’s] home schedule, their opponents [for 2024] in 2022 went just 30-21 overall. That includes Alabama, who was nine games over .500 themselves.

“Add up Oklahoma, Ole Miss and Vanderbilt — those three teams went .500 overall. If you think about the road trips, just a game over .500, 26-25, for those teams that they’re traveling to in 2024. LSU has a negotiable path to what could be the inaugural division-less SEC Championship.”

Last season, LSU made it to the SEC Championship game under first-year head coach Brian Kelly. They finished the season 10-4 but had a real shot to make the College Football Playoff until the final weeks of the regular season.

One of those losses came at the hands of Texas A&M, which was in the midst of a down year. Things could have been different for the Tigers if they have avoided that — but that did not end up being the case. Instead, LSU had to settle on a 63-7 victory over Purdue in the Citrus Bowl.

With the playoff expansion coinciding with conference realignment and dissolving of league divisions, McElroy believes a schedule like the one they were handed for 2024 bodes well for the Tigers’ efforts in making it back to the summit of college football.

On3’s Barkley Truax also contributed to this article.