Sports Illustrated projects Kentucky’s permanent opponents in new SEC schedule format

Mar 3, 2023 - 11:36 PM

The landscape of college football is changing, and it is changing fast.

With the SEC slated to bring in the Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners at the start of the 2024 season, it has football fans stoked at what the potential matchups in the conference could be next season.

With a growing sense that the SEC will adopt a nine-game conference schedule, it has the media and fans guessing what schedules will look like for each team in the SEC. The main theory is that the conference will select three permanent opponents for each program, and then have a rotation to fill out the remaining six games.

For the Kentucky Wildcats, there have been several schools that many think they will be matched up with. Ross Dellenger of SI gave his latest predictions for the three permanent opponents.

For the Cats, Dellenger has them paired up with the Georgia Bulldogs, Mississippi State Bulldogs, and South Carolina Gamecocks.

The big blow in this prediction is landing Georgia. Arguably the top program in the sport at the moment, the Cats have played the Bulldogs tough for the last several years, but still is a huge mountain to climb for Mark Stoops and his program.

Although the Mississippi State and South Carolina matchups are not terrible for the level the UK program is at, I know most of BBN will be upset if the SEC doesn’t include Tennessee as one of their three matchups.

There is a lot changing, but this will be a fun storyline to watch over the next several months to see how it all shakes out.