Phillip Fulmer gives update on SEC schedule

With August now here, college football teams will soon begin fall camp as they prepare for a fall season that may or may not happen due to the coronavirus.

In the meantime, the SEC hasn’t even finalized the schedules for its 14 members. The league decided last week that everyone will play a 10-game SEC schedule, but thus far, only eight opponents are scheduled for each team.

In the coming days and perhaps weeks, the league will come up with a model to determine who the added two opponents will be. One option could be teams playing the next two non-permanent, cross-division SEC opponents in their rotation, something Tennessee AD Phillip Fulmer discussed last week. He also said the opponents could be determined as early as this week.

“I think it makes some sense to do that,” Fulmer said via the Herald-Leader. “That was discussed. Many models will be looked at in the next week or so. Hopefully next week we’ll have an answer to that. The method that the commissioner sent was to be fair and equitable. Now what does that look like? And how do you get there?”

There’s also potential for the SEC to use strength of schedule to determine who the two opponents will be, which may or may not be good news for Kentucky.

And because the SEC season is being delayed to the week of Sept. 26th, it could lead to a reshuffling of the entire schedule.

“I like it that there’s control of the flexibility of the games,” he said. “It’s really interesting. We have eight games now, and those could change. Not the home and away, but the dates could change. There’s so much to think about in all this with the TV partners and obviously our fans. The big question is who on the other side are you going to draw to play.”

There’s a lot of moving pieces with how the schedule will shape out, but if Fulmer’s comments hold true, we could learn as early as this week as to who Kentucky’s two new SEC opponents will be.