Oklahoma will play its final Big 12 football season in a crowded conference, with Cincinnati, Houston, UCF, and BYU all joining the fray, but the SEC is set to be even more crowded when the Sooners arrive in 2024.
Oklahoma found out Wednesday who its opponents will be in the program's first SEC season, giving Sooners fans an early look at what to expect in the gauntlet of a conference.
The Sooners are coming off their first losing season since 1998, finishing 6-7 in year one under Brent Venables, so SEC success isn't guaranteed to come easily even if Oklahoma takes a step forward in 2023. Much of that will depend on who's on their schedule.
The Sooners are set to play eight games against SEC opponents in 2024, meaning there will be seven teams in the mega-conference they won't face in year one.
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Here's a look at Oklahoma's first SEC conference slate, including a breakdown of the Sooners' home, away and neutral-site games, including matchups reported ahead of the official announcement Wednesday evening:
Oklahoma football schedule 2024
Home
- Alabama
- South Carolina
- Tennessee
The Sooners' marquee conference home game in 2024 will see Nick Saban and the Crimson Tide pay a visit to Norman. It's a historically-significant matchup, although not one that has been contested too often: to date, Oklahoma and 'Bama have only met five times. Surprisingly enough, OU has the advantage in the all-time series, having won three games to the Crimson Tide's one.
hey'll round off their home slate with matchups against the Gamecocks and Volunteers.
Away
- Auburn
- LSU
- Missouri
- Ole Miss
OU will meet travel to Baton Rouge to take on LSU in a game certain to bring with it plenty of intrigue. The Tigers and Sooners are two of college football's biggest programs, teams that have regularly competed for national championships. The two sides have only shared the field on three occasions, most recently in 2018, when LSU battered Oklahoma in the College Football Playoff semifinal, 63-28. The Sooners will be hoping for a reversal of fortune next time around.
Neutral
- vs. Texas (in Dallas)
The Red River Rivalry will carry over to the SEC at its traditional neutral site at the Texas State Fair.
SEC football schedule format 2024
The SEC announced in early June that each team will play eight games against conference opponents in 2024, rather than the standard nine that most other major conferences play.
It's possible that format is only a one-year solution, though. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey called it a "one-year schedule" made necessary by Texas and Oklahoma joining in 2024 rather than the originally planned 2025. That means nine conference games could be a possibility as early as 2025.
By playing only eight conference games, Oklahoma and all other SEC teams will miss seven conference opponents in 2024. The SEC says this format would still allow teams to play each conference opponent at least twice in a four-year period.
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Additionally, divisions will be eliminated in 2024, meaning there are fewer restrictions on which opponents teams can face, and the top two overall finishers in the conference will meet in the SEC title game. With only eight games on the docket, however, and no guarantee for head-to-head tiebreakers because of how many teams won't play each other, there could be chaos at the top of the conference standings.
The SEC will also require that each team play at least one non-conference game against an opponent from a Power 5 conference. As of right now, Temple and Tulane are the only non-conference opponents on Oklahoma's 2024 schedule, so the Sooners still need to find a power-conference game.