LSU's Lane Kiffin continues to make case against 9-game SEC schedule

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The SEC is moving to a nine-game schedule in 2026. For years, there was talk of adding another conference game to the SEC slate and now it's finally happening. Schedules will be tougher.

In theory, that should give teams a better resume to hand the College Football Playoff committee. That's not how LSU head coach Lane Kiffin sees it. Kiffin has been outspoken about scheduling in recent years, saying the SEC shouldn't move to nine games unless the conference trusts that strength of schedule will get the proper weight from the CFP committee. Kiffin doubled down at SEC Media Days.

"My concern was about the nine games is that you're going to lose non-conference games. Teams will eventually get out of the bigger non-conference games because the selection process is not fixed," Kiffin said.

Kiffin is saying programs will cancel major nonconference games to make up for the difficulty added by the extra conference game. Just last week, LSU canceled a future series with Arizona State.

"Until that is fixed to really, truly reward strength of schedule, I was against it, because I think what you're going to have is more conference losses," Kiffin said.

With more conference games, Kiffin is concerned about SEC teams beating up on each other with less chances to prove their worth vs nonconference opponents, too. Both of those factors would work against the SEC come selection time.

"So I just think that it's going to cause issues that we've already seen until we can get to a world where people can actually look at teams and say, that team that is 9-3 with their schedule is a better team than that 11-1 in a different conference, which now I think we aren't even close to doing that," Kiffin said.

The Big Ten, which is the only conference comparable to the SEC, plays nine conference games, but the Big Ten doesn't require teams to schedule a nonconference Power Four opponent every year like the SEC asks of its teams.

For now, the CFP is remaining at 12 teams. The playoff could expand to 16 teams or 24 teams in future years, which would benefit the SEC and its nine-game conference schedule.

This article originally appeared on LSU Wire: LSU's Lane Kiffin continues to make case against 9-game SEC schedule

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