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Tennessee football to play Alabama, Kentucky, Vanderbilt every season in new SEC schedule
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- Tennessee football to play Alabama, Kentucky, Vanderbilt every season in new SEC schedule
Tennessee football will play Alabama , Kentucky and Vanderbilt as its annual SEC opponents, beginning in the 2026 season.
The SEC will move to a nine-game conference schedule beginning next season. Each team in the conference will be assigned three annual opponents, while the other six opponents will rotate. That means each school will play every SEC opponent home and away every four years.
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The USA TODAY Network , which includes Knox News, confirmed each school's annual opponents with a person familiar with the situation who requested anonymity due to the schedule not being released publicly. On3.com first reported the news.
The SEC will announce each school's full conference schedule for the next four years during an hour-long show at 7 p.m. ET on Sept. 23, on SEC Network and ESPN2.
The annual assignments will undergo evaluation after the initial four years of the nine-game SEC schedule and could be changed after that four-year period.
What Josh Heupel said about Tennessee annual opponents
Preserving prominent rivalries, as well as geography, were a priority in the assignment of annual opponents.
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Not every rivalry could be kept in an expanded scheduling format. For example, Tennessee will no longer play Florida and Georgia every season. The math simply doesn't allow that in a 16-team league.
Tennessee coach Josh Heupel said he was unaware that the list of annual opponents had been reported, but he was pleased that some rivalries will remain on future schedules.
"I do think that rivalries matter," Heupel said. "It's a part of the tradition of this game with fan bases pointing to those football games. I hadn't heard that report. I know for the league, that's something that is important to them to try to protect some of those special games for universities and their fan bases."
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Here are annual opponents for every SEC team
Beginning in 2026, here are the annual opponents for each SEC school.
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Alabama: Auburn, Tennessee, Mississippi State
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Arkansas : Missouri, Texas, LSU
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Auburn: Georgia, Alabama, Vanderbilt
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Florida: Georgia, South Carolina, Kentucky
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Georgia: Auburn, Florida, South Carolina
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Kentucky: South Carolina, Tennessee, Florida
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LSU: Arkansas, Ole Miss , Texas A&M
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Mississippi State: Ole Miss, Alabama, Vanderbilt
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Missouri: Arkansas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma
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Oklahoma: Texas, Ole Miss, Missouri
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Ole Miss: Mississippi State, LSU, Oklahoma
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South Carolina: Georgia, Kentucky, Florida
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Tennessee: Alabama, Vanderbilt, Kentucky
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Texas: Texas A&M, Arkansas, Oklahoma
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Texas A&M: Texas, LSU, Missouri
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Vanderbilt: Tennessee, Mississippi State, Auburn
Tennessee football 2026 schedule, opponents
In a nine-game conference schedule, some teams will play five home games and four road games, and vice versa.
Tennessee's full slate of 2026 opponents will be revealed by the SEC on Sept. 23. But athletics director Danny White said on the Big Orange Countdown that the Vols will have five SEC home games in 2026 .
Tennessee will play nonconference games against Furman (Sept. 5), at Georgia Tech (Sept. 12) and Kennesaw State (Sept. 19). Alabama, Kentucky and Vanderbilt will be annual SEC opponents, and six more conference opponents will be added.
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Dates of SEC games will be announced at a later date.
Blake Toppmeyer of USA TODAY Network contributed to this report. Adam Sparks is the Tennessee football beat reporter. Email adam.sparks@knoxnews.com . X, formerly known as Twitter @AdamSparks . Support strong local journalism by subscribing at knoxnews.com/subscribe .
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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Tennessee football SEC permanent opponents set for 2026 schedule
