'It's a bloodbath': Mark Stoops remains staunch supporter for SEC to stay with 8-game schedule model

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Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops at a NIL fundraising event, via Dr. Michael Huang, KSR

A massive topic at SEC Media Days in Atlanta has been what will happen with College Football Playoff (CFP) expansion and the conference’s schedule in 2026. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey revealed that a decision on the 2026 schedule will need to happen soon. Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops is not changing his tune on an issue that has been discussed for years.

In a recent sit down interview with The Cats Pause’s Darrell Bird, the dean of SEC football head coaches discussed the future of the CFP and the conference’s scheduling model. Stoops remains a big supporter of the eight-game structure that has been in place for decades.

“Come try to play nine games in this league. We tried to play 10 one time. Look what that looked like,” Stoops told Bird when asked about the Big Ten’s preference for the SEC to shift to a nine-game model. “It’s a bloodbath. Of course, they’re gonna say that. Look at their schedules and then look at ours and tell me one sane person that thinks that’s the same. Except other head coaches from the power four, they’re going to act like it’s all equal, but anybody with any sanity is going to understand the differences in those schedules.”

“No, they are funny. … There’s your one soundbite from this year. The rest of this is going to be boring.”

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Sankey said something similar regarding the toughness of the SEC slate earlier this week at the College Football Hall of Fame. The leader of this conference wants to see how the CFP selection committee will “evaluate strength of schedule and even strength of record” before making a long-term decision on the schedule. Meanwhile, the Big Ten still demands that the SEC add an additional conference game before they consider giving up on their proposed automatic bid structure.

Mark Stoops also told Bird that he was a proponent of the 5+11 CFP model that both the ACC and Big 12 have publicly supported. That would give every power conference champion and the highest-ranked Group of Five champion an automatic bid with the rest of the invitations in a 16-team playoff field being at-larges. But the big statement from the long-time coach in Lexington was about the SEC scheduling model.

Some programs want changes to the selection committee process before pivoting to a nine-game model. Stoops and Kentucky just don’t think it’s healthy for this football program to play more than eight SEC games.