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TAMPA, Fla.
It used to be the biggest rivalry game of the week, the month maybe the entire season.
In 2026, Florida and Tennessee will be complete strangers.
Their once-a-year matchup that, back in the day, featured Steve Spurrier, Peyton Manning, Phillip Fulmer and snark that sometimes even outweighed the stakes You cant spell Citrus without U-T is absent from the schedule for the first time in 37 seasons.
Alabama-LSU soon thatll be gone, too, for the first time since 1963.
The Gators and LSU theyll miss each other this year for the first time since 1970.
Such is the price of progress in the Southeastern Conference, which has grown from 10 teams in the old days to 16 now.
The league is introducing a nine-game league slate this season in an attempt to boost strength of schedule for what is now a playoff system that has a committee awarding seven at-large spots in the 12-team field.
When you look at our schedule, no one has created the kind of weekly competition that exists in the Southeastern Conference, commissioner Greg Sankey said.
The divisions that once made Florida-Tennessee such a big deal winner had an inside track for the East, a spot in the conference title game and maybe the national championship are gone, another product of expansion.
Under the new system, in place through 2029, each school will play three annual foes.
Some of the SECs most ancient rivalries, like Alabama-Auburn, Florida-Georgia and Auburn-Georgia, were preserved.
Others now are less-permanent affairs.
Another oldie but goodie thats missing this year, Georgia vs.
Tennessee, was first played in 1899 and became an annual event in 1992.
The Volunteers got the best of the Bulldogs early, but Georgia has won nine in a row and 14 of the last 16 a run that prompted a question to Georgia coach Kirby Smart about feeling like he has one less win on the schedule.
You said that; not me, Smart responded.
I got a lot of respect for Josh (Heupel) and their staff.
I mean, theyre a tough prep.
Im glad other teams get an opportunity to do that, and then we get some new teams to play.
Some new teams, yes.
Some old rivalries will return, too.
For instance, Arkansas-Texas, a must-see game on the old Southwestern Conference schedule that produced the Game of the Century, attended by President Richard Nixon in 1969, is an annual affair again.
Two years ago, Missouri renewed acquaintance with Oklahoma, reupping a rivalry that meant a lot in the Big Eight for a time in the 1970s.
And Texas-Texas A&M, the Lone Star Shootout and a game held every year between 1915 and 2011, now will be played annually.
Asked about rivalries being renewed and others that, in another effect of realignment, are changing dates Missouris season-ending tradition against Arkansas has been moved to Week 8 Tigers coach Eli Drinkwitz said: I dont worry about that.
I know each and every game in the SEC is extremely difficult.
The SEC also mandated its teams play a 10th game against a Power Four opponent, which led Kansas and Missouri to renew their so-called Border War and created other early season matchups like Oklahoma-Michigan, Clemson-LSU, Ohio State-Texas, Auburn-Baylor, Arkansas-Utah and Arizona State-Texas.
SEC coaches believed moving to a nine-game league schedule would coincide with College Football Playoff expansion, which didnt happen.
Now, they have tougher schedules, no increased access to the 12-team playoff and a few less rivalries.
Thats what our conference looks like, Oklahoma coach Brent Venables said.
Each and every week, youre not going to sneak up on anybody.
A brief look at the Tennessee-Florida series The Tennessee-Florida rivalry decided the SEC East a dozen times between 1993 and 2009.
Spurrier got under Fulmers skin with his Citrus Bowl comments.
Manning, despite all his accolades, went 0-4 against the Gators.
The importance of the rivalry diminished beginning in 2011, with both schools falling behind Georgia in the East.
A brief look at the Florida-LSU series The Florida-LSU matchup has been filled with chaos, controversy and close games.
Among the most memorable: LSU upset No.
1 Florida in 1997, and fans stormed the field and tore down goal posts; the top-ranked Tigers won another close one a decade later by converting five fourth-down plays; and in 2020, unranked LSU stunned the sixth-ranked Gators in Gainesville on Cade Yorks 57-yard field goal through heavy fog after cornerback Marco Wilson inexplicably threw an opponents shoe and kept alive the game-winning drive.
A brief look at the LSU-Alabama series Alabama and LSU played 12 times between 2008 and 2021 with one of them ranked first or second.
It often had Western Division and national title implications.
It comes off the schedule for 2027, no longer an annual fixture.
Few matchups outweigh the 2011 showdown in which top-ranked LSU knocked off No.
2 Alabama 9-6 in overtime.
The Crimson Tide won the rematch in New Orleans two months later for the national championship.
Could current rivalries be affected beyond 2029? The SEC has been adamant that each teams annual opponents will be revisited and potentially realigned to maintain competitive balance before the 2030 season.
Of course, by then, theres no telling what the SEC or college football will look like.