The Red River Shootout is part of Texas' desire for a nine-game SEC schedule

MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. — The pressing issue around SEC Spring Meetings is centered around the format of the College Football Playoff in the years following the 2025 season. Once that is determined, which is proving to be a difficult process, then the SEC can finally decide if it wants to move to a nine-game conference schedule.

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Reasons for moving to nine are plenty. More matchups between teams in arguably the best league in the country. More data for the process of determining a conference champion. Moving in sync with the other Power Four leagues that play nine conference games.

There are also reasons to remain at eight for SEC members. The four-game non-conference schedule provides teams that may struggle in the league the opportunity to reach bowl games. While bowls may not be as celebrated as they once were, winning six games is still going .500 or better. They also help bring in revenue, something that’s critically important to athletic departments now that they’ll have to share some of those funds with student-athletes if or when the House settlement is approved.

Inside Texas reporting points toward Texas preferring nine conference games. In Destin on Tuesday, Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian didn’t explicitly say he wanted a move to a nine-game schedule going forward. But he did show support for the idea of a nine-game schedule, particularly in years that look like 2025, with a unique reason why.

“Granted, for us, I would love a ninth conference game, this year alone in particular, because one of our home games is in Dallas and we only get three home conference games,” Sarkisian said.

Every year since 1929, the Texas Longhorns have battled the Oklahoma Sooners in the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. It is a fixture on the college football calendar in early October, and the schools have an agreement in place with the City of Dallas to keep the game in the Cotton Bowl until 2036.

That means that for Texas, if the schedule stays at eight games, only three SEC teams will venture to Austin in years where the Longhorns are the designated home team in the Cotton Bowl. This year, that trio is Vanderbilt, Arkansas, and Texas A&M. While the matchup with the Aggies is a highlight considering they haven’t been to Austin since 2010 and Texas hasn’t defeated their in-state rival at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium since 2008, it’s one of three games and it falls at the end of the season on Black Friday. To compare, every other team in the league except Florida will play four home conference games in 2025. The Gators and the Georgia Bulldogs also have this issue due to the neutral site nature of their rivalry game.

A ninth conference game essentially guarantees that Texas’ SEC schedule would feature four home games, four road games, and the Red River Shootout in Dallas. That means four games at DKR’s worth of gate, concessions, and everything else.

Without it? Slates like this year with just six home games and three against Group of Five opponents.

A ninth game would appear to be the easiest solution. But it won’t likely be implemented until the future of the College Football Playoff is solidified. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey has taken arrows for the SEC the past two days, and fired some off as well. Sankey has advocated for a number of reserved spots in the College Football Playoff for his league’s teams. If that comes to pass, then it should help the process of moving to nine games.

But there’s pushback nationally against that idea of automatically reserving one-third to one-quarter of the spots in the playoff field for the SEC (the Big 10 would get a similar number of spots). And if those automatic qualifier spots don’t come to fruition, then teams around the league won’t see the point of adding a ninth conference game considering it could be what keeps a SEC team out of the Playoff whether it features 12, 14, or 16 teams.

“For our fans to get another home game against an SEC opponent, I think is a great thing,” Sarkisian said. “I think the challenge with that is none of us want to be punished because that’s eight more losses for our conference no matter how you slice it. Eight teams are going to win and eight teams are going to lose Nobody wants to get punished playing another game. I think that’s the challenge. How does that affect you from a Playoff perspective? What does that look like?”

Sarkisian highlighted the talent level in the SEC as evidence of the rigor of the league’s schedule. He also can point to the physical beating the league gives on a weekly basis, as Sarkisian altered how he ran spring practices because of the length of the 2024 season undertaken by the Longhorns.

Of course, a couple of neutral site rivalry games aren’t going to be the deciding factors when it comes to the eight vs. nine decision. That’s why talks coming out of Destin regarding the CFP have been cast under the microscope. The league’s eventual decision will have a tremendous effect on the future of the sport, and the desire for the SEC to get an understanding and an influence on the future of the CFP is what the future schedule model will depend on.

“I look at the history of the football conference in the SEC. I’ve admired it from afar. I had a chance to coach in it when I was an assistant and now,” Sarkisian said. “It’s 18 straight years that its had the most draft picks in the NFL draft. This year they broke the record with 79 draft picks. The point being, we feel like we’ve got a great conference. We feel like we’ve got great players, great teams, great coaches. We just want to make sure we have the right access to further our season to compete for a championship.”

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The future of the College Football Playoff isn’t the only reason why Texas is in support of a ninth conference game. They want to make sure four SEC teams head to Austin on an annual basis, but everything else has to check out first.