ROWE: SEC’s 2025 scheduling great for Georgia, positive for fans of the league

A nine-game SEC schedule will have to wait. The league released its scheduling format for the 2025 season, its second with 16 teams, will feature just eight games. It also announced the 2025 opponents and locations for each SEC team and it’s simply a flip-flop of home and away games from what it will look like in 2024. Because of that, the Georgia home schedule is absolutely loaded.

It’s certainly a simple way of doing things. It has also been viewed as lazy. While both of those things can certainly be argued as true, it feels like the right call. It feels right for Georgia, at least.

The Southeastern Conference features a lot of marquee matchups in 2024 that should be seen in more than one venue. Georgia will be involved in a few of those. The Bulldogs have Alabama, Texas, and Ole Miss on the road this season. That’s a daunting slate without considering a non-conference, neutral-site matchup with Clemson and the other five league games.

Those stadiums in Tuscaloosa, Austin, and Oxford will be rocking come September, October, and November. A year later, the same will be true with all of the energy landing in the Classic City. Bulldog fans will see the Longhorns in Sanford Stadium for the first time ever. The only time the Texas has ever played Georgia in the Peach State was 1957 and that one took place in Atlanta.

Alabama will be back in Athens for the first time since 2015. Ole Miss has been to Athens much more recently with Georgia thumping the Rebels 52-17 in 2023. Lane Kiffin’s program draws the short straw by having to play UGA at its place two times in three years.

But the schedule flipping and repeating makes sense for a reason that digs deeper than just how exciting it is for Georgia fans. It extends traditional rivalries for at least one more year.

Let’s keep it in Athens for a second where the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry with Auburn continues on. We also get to see the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party for another year, a game that — per everything we’ve heard thus far — is likely as set in stone as it can possibly be.

The annual showdown between Alabama and Tennessee remains for the 2025 season. Texas vs. Texas A&M will take place for a second straight season with both teams getting to host. Other rivalries fit the bill and while the long-term future of those matchups still hang in the balance, Georgia fans and those who love the league have the comfort of an extension of what we want to see.

It should be noted that, to this point, there has been plenty of time to figure something out beyond a year-to-year solution. Kicking the can down the road probably isn’t going to produce scenarios that haven’t been considered yet. If there’s a format out there that makes everyone happy, it has probably been considered and debated, maybe multiple times over.

Still, we’re in an era of College Football where things are ever changing. The sport is engaged in battles on multiple fronts and the future is uncertain. At least we know that one of the things that made us love this game, traditional rivalries, are here to stay for a little while longer.

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