Tennessee Football’s Southeastern Conference opponents are set for the next four seasons. The SEC announced its new nine-game schedule format Tuesday night, with each team facing three annual rivals while rotating through the league with the other six games.
The Vols will face Alabama, Kentucky and Vanderbilt as their annual rivals, as reported by On3’s Chris Low on Monday afternoon, getting Alabama and Kentucky at home next season and Vanderbilt on the road.
Tennessee next season will also have home games against Auburn, LSU and Texas. The other road games are at Arkansas, South Carolina and Texas A&M.
Tennessee’s Future Schedules
2026
Home (5): Alabama, Auburn, Kentucky, LSU, Texas
Away (4): Arkansas, South Carolina, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt
2027
Home (4): Florida, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Vanderbilt
Away (5): Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma
2028
Home (5): Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, South Carolina, Texas A&M
Away (4): Auburn, LSU, Texas, Vanderbilt
2029
Home (4): Georgia, Missouri, Oklahoma, Vanderbilt
Away (5): Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Ole Miss, Mississippi State
The 2026 season will be the first schedule without Georgia and Florida since 1992.
Tennessee has never played Texas in the regular season. The three previous meetings were all in the Cotton Bowl, with the Vols winning 20-14 on New Year’s Day 1951 and the Longhorns winning 16-0 on New Year’s Day 1953 and 36-13 on New Year’s Day 1969.
Tennessee and Auburn haven’t played since 2020 and South Carolina has been off the schedule the last two seasons. The Vols beat Texas A&M at home, but haven’t played the Aggies on the road since 2016. They won at LSU in 2022, haven’t hosted the Tigers since 2017.
The Kentucky series is Tennessee’s most played, with 120 games dating back to 1893, and the Vanderbilt series is the oldest, with its 119 games dating back to 1892. Tennessee-Alabama is the most notable rivalry for the Vols, though, with the “Third Saturday in October” having been played 107 times since 1901.
“I do think rivalries matter,” Tennessee coach Josh Heupel said on Monday. “It’s part of the tradition of this game, fan bases pointing to those football games. I haven’t heard about that report. I know that the league, that’s something that’s been important to them to try to protect some of those special games for universities and their fan bases.”
SEC requires one additional power-conference opponent on schedule
The three annual rivals and six-team rotation assures that rivalries across the league will be kept alive while all league teams will play every two years and will play each team home and away every four seasons.
The priorities the SEC used to build the new schedule model included traditional rivalries, rotational frequency and College Football Playoff participation. Competitive fairness and geography were also an emphasis. The annual rivalry games will be reevaluated every four years.
The SEC will continue to use a single-standings, non-divisional structure for the league and will also require teams to schedule one quality non-conference game against teams from the ACC, Big Ten or Big 12, or against Notre Dame.
Tennessee’s upcoming non-conference opponents
Tennessee has non-conference opponents scheduled through the 2030 season, including a power-conference opponent for each of the next five seasons.
The Vols next season host Furman and Kennesaw State and go to Georgia Tech. In 2027 Tennessee will host Tennessee State, Georgia Tech and Western Michigan.
Tennessee and West Virginia will play a neutral-site game in Charlotte, N.C., in 2028. The Vols then have a home-and-home with Washington, starting in Knoxville in 2029 before going to Seattle in 2030.
Source link
