What a 9-Game SEC Schedule Means for Kentucky

It’s happening. SEC presidents voted on Thursday to add a ninth conference football game to schedules starting in 2026.

The future of the league’s schedule has remained up in the air since Greg Sankey sent a seismic shockwave through the sport by adding Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC. Kentucky was a part of a coalition that kept the league from expanding to 9-conference games per year. They were able to maintain that 8-game format for two seasons, but higher powers have been pushed in another direction.

“There’s never been any mystery about where we stand on the SEC football schedule: we’ve consistently felt that the current format was the right fit for Kentucky,” Mitch Barnhart said in a statement. “But as the conference moves forward together with a nine-game slate, we’ll embrace the challenge head-on. We’re confident in the opportunities ahead for Kentucky Football and excited for the chances we have to play in the nation’s most competitive conference as well as maintaining our historical rivalries.”

So, where does this leave Kentucky? Let’s lay out that good and the bad from this change, and explain how we got here.

Why the SEC is Expanding to 9 Conference Games

Money is the simple answer, but it’s much more complicated than that.

Once the SEC added the Red River Rivalry, the Big Ten broke up the PAC-12. It coincided with the league’s media rights renewal. To maximize their earnings, they expanded to nine conference games.

The Big Ten and the SEC control the fate of CFP expansion. The Big Ten resisted change until the SEC moved to nine conference games. The SEC refused to budge until the CFP Selection Committee put a stronger emphasis on each playoff team’s strength of schedule. That happened on Wednesday, opening the floodgates for Sankey to push presidents to make the move to nine games.

Kentucky is Going to Make More Money

Back to the money, the most important part of this equation. In 2020, the SEC signed a 10-year, $3 billion exclusive media rights deal with ESPN. That was only for eight conference games per season.

In May, we learned that ESPN is willing to pony up between $50-$80 million more per year if the league added another conference game to the schedule. That means Kentucky will make an estimated $5 million more per year in TV revenue.

That doesn’t include the additional revenue the SEC will receive when the CFP expands and the league averages four participants a season, if not more. The lump sum each SEC school receives annually in revenue distribution will vary from year to year, but it’s going to be significantly higher than the average of around $55 million in the previous media rights deal.

Rivalries are Preserved

Now that the money aspect is out of the way, let’s share the most important and positive side effect for SEC football fans. Traditional rivalries will continue to be played every single year.

In an 8-game format, each school would only be guaranteed to have one SEC team on its schedule every year. The problem is that SEC schools have more than one big rival. Obviously, the league would have preserved the Iron Bowl, but it would have eliminated the annual Third Saturday in October (Alabama vs. Tennessee) and the South’s Oldest Rivalry (Auburn vs. Georgia).

In a 9-game rotation, each school will have three permanent opponents. The SEC did not reveal who those opponents will be. Tennessee will certainly be included on every future Kentucky football schedule. It’s a little more challenging to determine the other two. South Carolina is speculated to be in that mix, too.

Ross Dellenger’s mock schedule is challenging for Kentucky, drawing Georgia, South Carolina, and Mississippi State. Adam Luckett created his own projection on Thursday night, and landed on Tennessee, Missouri, and Georgia as the three most likely annual opponents.

The Governor’s Cup Survives

Since the 8 vs. 9 debate started, it was widely speculated that the addition of another conference game to the SEC schedule would kill the Governor’s Cup. Greg Sankey has a solution for that.

The SEC will require every team to schedule at least one additional high quality non-conference opponent from the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, or Notre Dame each year. This ensures the Governor’s Cup rivalry between Kentucky and Louisville will remain intact for the foreseeable future.

Long Droughts are Over

Texas A&M joined the SEC in 2012. The Aggies have still never made a road trip to Lexington for a football game. The new 3-6 format ensures that if a player stays at one school over four years, they will play every team in the conference, both home and away.

The Kentucky Football Schedule Just Got a Lot Tougher

In the first two years of the expanded SEC, Kentucky will play the eighth toughest schedule in the country, according to ESPN FPI. The new scheduling format guarantees the Wildcats will play at least ten power conference opponents every year.

Last week, we learned that Kentucky added Kent State to its 2026 schedule, joining Youngstown State, South Alabama, and Louisville. At least one of those contracts will be broken to make way for an additional SEC game.

In the SEC, it just means more. Under the new scheduling format, it means more money for the Kentucky Wildcats, but they will pay a price for it. Getting to the postseason just got significantly more difficult. Expectations should be altered for every SEC team, but we all know that will not happen overnight.