August got hot again in Alabama yesterday, and in a move that was every bit that certain, the SEC took the bag.

The 2026 season will mark the advent of nine conferences games per team in the SEC after the league had held fast at eight for the past 33 years. By the time it expanded to 14 teams, adding Texas A&M and Missouri in 2012, the move to a nine-game schedule had already become a topic. But under then-commissioner Mike Slive, the notion was met with a "no thanks." Fast-forward to 2024, and neither new expansion to 16 schools nor ridicule from Big Ten Country for its eight-game schedule compelled the SEC to change. It was a more strident drumbeat than it had been 12 years earlier, but was quieted just the same.

Greg Sankey added Texas and Oklahoma, and to the nine-game schedule,

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