MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. -- SEC athletic directors on Tuesday voted to play conference games on the second-to-last week of the regular season, eliminating what has been commonly referred to as the "cupcake" games before rivalry weekend, commissioner Greg Sankey said.
The new schedule policy will begin in 2027.
"That's the end of cupcake weekend in late November," Sankey said as part of his comments wrapping up the first full day of SEC spring meetings. "We never got that one sponsored."
Sankey said the SEC has been talking about it for months and needed to make the decision now in time to schedule for 2027.
"And if we didn't make the decision at this point or decline that, then we'd have to make some nonconference date adjustments," he said. "It was timely, that's why it happened now."
This coming season, on Nov. 21, Alabama will host Chattanooga, and Auburn will host Samford, before facing each other the following week in the Iron Bowl. Ole Miss will host Wofford, and Mississippi State will host Tennessee Tech, before ending the regular season with the Egg Bowl.
Sankey said the decision wasn't driven by any desire to silence critics, rather it was a result of the league transitioning to nine conference games this season and playing on more weekends.
"So you really cannot have odd numbers of open or nonconference dates later in the season, because then that has a backward domino effect, and where you place games early, and we ran into some of that in the '26 season," he said. "So this allows more of the backend scheduling, open some things up, so you don't have that late conflict with either open dates or nonconference dates. I think that's the why."
