SEC reveals schedule plan for 2024 football season. What does it mean for South Carolina?
The Southeastern Conference has a new schedule — at least for now.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey announced on Thursday at the league’s annual spring meetings member teams will play an eight-game schedule and one opponent from the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-12 or major independent for the 2024 football season.
The scheduling model — made to account for the additions of Texas and Oklahoma as members — will only apply to the 2024 campaign and, according to Sankey, gives the league more “runway” to decide on a more permanent solution.
“Over time, nobody is shying away from anything,” Sankey said when asked what he’d tell those criticizing the league for not expanding to nine games. “We just didn’t add another game during a period of transition. And if you’re that impatient, I’m glad you’re not leading a conference.”
The debate over the scheduling model has raged for well over a year, following news that OU and Texas would depart the Big 12 and join the SEC. There was some speculation the league would reach a consensus during last year’s spring meetings, but no vote was held.
Discussion this year centered on two different formats: an eight-game slate with one permanent opponent and a nine-game schedule with three permanent opponents. Ultimately, the league functionally shelved both for a later vote.
Sankey, though, was adamant he expects a longer-term solution to the SEC football schedule beyond 2024 to be made in the next year.
Opponents for the 2024 season will be revealed on June 14 on a prime-time show on SEC Network, while the dates of those games will be determined at a later date.
“We have a combination of the expectation of fairness and balance,” Sankey said of how the league will compile the schedule. “Obviously, if you look at any number of retrospective analyses, you look at win-loss record — we’ve been asked to make the competitive disparity and strength of schedule more narrow than it is.
“If you can achieve like a perfect ballot, that’d be great. But you can’t make an undefeated team playing another undefeated team. You can’t make last year’s Georgia (team) play itself. So, we’re going to honor our traditional rivalries, traditional games and produce a schedule on June 14.”
What does new SEC schedule mean for South Carolina?
South Carolina hadn’t publicly endorsed the eight- or nine-game model, but consensus internally has been that an eight-game slate was preferable given, among a handful of other concerns, the annual nonconference football matchup with Clemson.
USC has a number of nonconference games against Power Five opponents on the books for the next 10 years that include North Carolina, N.C. State, Miami (FL) and Virginia Tech. Adding another SEC game to those schedules — should South Carolina administrators not been able to get out of those contracts — would’ve made already stiff schedules even tougher on paper.
South Carolina’s 2024 season, specifically, has deals in place for nonconference games against Old Dominion, Wofford, Akron and Clemson — meaning it’s unlikely to need any changes in the immediate future.
Sankey noted games like South Carolina-Clemson, Florida-Florida State and other annual nonconference rivalry games were part of the discussion in landing where the league did, but also that it wasn’t a singular deciding factor.
“There’s a lot of really, really special games that are contemplated — including traditional in-state rivalries that are nonconference games. All of that informs thinking. As I’ve said before, there’s like a whole list of reasons — and I know it’s maybe more enjoyable to reduce it to one — but there’s a lot going into the decision.”
SEC also adds new field-storming penalties, policies
Field storming has become a consistent talking point within league circles in recent years, leading the SEC to make some changes to its current policies.
Those adjustments included requiring schools to provide security and uniformed law enforcement officers around each team and game officials before, during and after games. Schools will also be asked to use equipment like ropes, barricades and expandable tunnels to shepherd teams off the playing surfaces in the event of a field storm.
The SEC has also stiffened the penalties for field/court storming to now include fines on the following scale:
First offense — $100,000
Second offense — $250,000
Third and subsequent offenses — $500,000
Schools who had infractions on field storms under the previous rules are now also reset to zero given the institution of new rules, while the penalty can reset if a university is free from a violation of the policy in all sports for a consecutive four-year period.
South Carolina, for example, was dinged for the field storm in the wake of its football win over No. 5 Tennessee last fall. Should it happen again, USC would now be penalized as though it was a first offense.
“I understand the concerns about it from a safety standpoint,” Gamecocks head football coach Shane Beamer said. “I saw videos, like you guys did, of instances last year where fans did storm the field and it wasn’t always good.
“I was fortunate that the two storms we were part of (against Tennessee and at Clemson), we were the home team and the other one we had just won the game, so it was a positive in a lot of ways. I’ve been at other schools where you’re the losing team and the other team storms the field and it can be intense. There’s no question about it. Want what’s best for everyone involved and the safety of everybody involved.”
