On3 Report: Tennessee to play Alabama, Kentucky and Vanderbilt annually

On Tuesday, Tennessee will learn who their nine SEC opponents will be for the 2026 football season. 

According to a report from On3’s Chris Low, we know who three of the nine opponents will be for the next four years. 

Low’s story had the three permanent opponents for each SEC school and Tennessee’s three are Alabama, Vanderbilt and Kentucky. 

The Third Saturday in October clash between the Tide and the Vols has been a staple of the SEC with the two having played each other 107 times. This October’s match up being the 108. The two teams have played each other every year since 1944. 

Vanderbilt and the Vols were also an expected choice given the two are in-state opponents and every state that has two SEC teams with in their borders are playing either other. You have the Egg Bowl with Mississippi State and Ole Miss as well as the Iron Bowl with Alabama and Auburn. You also have Texas A&M and Texas playing each other. So the in-state match up was a given. 

This November’s meeting between the the Vols and the ‘Dores will be the 118th meeting between the two. They first started playing in 1900. And they have played every season since with the exception of 1911, 1912, 1943 and 1944.

Tennessee’s third regular opponent over the next four years will be Kentucky according to Low’s report. The two schools first played in 1893 when Kentucky was known as Kentucky A&M. The two have played every year since 1919 with the exception of 1943 and they actually played twice in 1944. The October match up in Lexington will be the 121st meeting between the two schools. 

The process in which the three games were chosen included a human element and some math according to Tennessee athletic director Danny White.

“It’s metric driven in terms of competitiveness over the last 5-10 years within the league,” White said on the Big Orange Countdown ahead of Tennessee’s match up with Georgia. “Certainly rivalries matter. That’s where the subjectivity comes in and geography matters too. For fans, for players and their families, geography has to be considered as well.”

In addition to the three rivalry games, fans will learn on Tuesday who the rest of their opponents will be. Dates and locations of those game will not be unveiled till December, but for Tennessee the 2026 campaign will feature five league games in Neyland Stadium and four at home in 2027.

“Next year we will have five SEC home games and we will be at Georgia Tech, then it flip flops,” White said Saturday on the Vol Network. “So it’s lined up for us through all of our non-conference games that are scheduled right now.

“I think (SEC Deputy Commissioner) Charlie Hussy in our conference office has done a really good job working with us really over the last few years. I have been hesitant to move forward out to many years with non-conference scheduling because I wanted to see where we landed on eight games versus nine games. And if we are at nine games I want to make sure that our home versus away mix matches up with what our 5 SEC games would be versus four.”