SEC releases full 2024 football schedule

Published 8:14 pm Wednesday, December 13, 2023

The Southeastern Conference is changing in 2024, but the Egg Bowl will keep its place as the season finale for Ole Miss and Mississippi State.

The SEC released its full 2024 football schedule on Wednesday night, and the rivalry game between the two Magnolia State schools will be on the final weekend.

The date was tentatively set for Saturday, Nov. 30 in Oxford. It would be just the second time since 2016 that the two programs have not played on Thanksgiving, although it could still be moved to the holiday.

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Each SEC team will play eight conference football games plus at least one required opponent from the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 or major independent, and each team will have two open dates.

The season begins Aug. 31, with Mississippi State hosting Eastern Kentucky and Ole Miss playing Furman.

Mississippi State’s SEC opener is in Week 4, against Florida in Davis Wade Stadium on Sept. 21. Road trips to Texas and Georgia follow, with an open date between them.

The game against Texas will be the Longhorns’ first conference contest as a member of the SEC. Texas and Oklahoma are joining the expanded SEC in 2024. Oklahoma’s first league game is Sept. 21, at home vs. Tennessee. Each SEC team will play either Texas or Oklahoma in 2024, and the other in 2025.

Mississippi State’s non-conference schedule also includes a trip to Arizona State on Sept. 7, and home games vs. Toledo (Sept. 14) and Massachusetts (Nov. 2). A second open date is on Nov. 16, between a road game at Tennessee and a home game vs. Missouri.

Ole Miss plays its SEC opener at home against Kentucky on Sept. 28. Road games at South Carolina and LSU follow the next two weeks, then an open date on Oct. 19.

The Rebels play home games against Oklahoma on Oct. 26 and Georgia on Nov. 9, with road games at Arkansas on Nov. 2 and Florida Nov. 23 to round out the SEC schedule.

Ole Miss’ second open date is Nov. 16. Its non-conference schedule has home games against Middle Tennessee (Sept. 7) and Georgia Southern (Sept. 21), and a visit to Wake Forest (Sept. 14).

Other games of note from the 2024 SEC schedule include:

• Two high-profile neutral-site games highlight opening weekend on Aug. 31, as Georgia faces Clemson in Atlanta and LSU plays Southern California in Las Vegas.

• Kentucky will open its season at home against Southern Miss on Aug. 31. Kentucky was originally scheduled to play Akron, and Southern Miss to visit Ohio State, but the schools agreed to swap opponents.

• On Sept. 7, the first league game of the season will have South Carolina at Kentucky. It is the only game that week between two SEC teams.

• After opening the season against Southern California, LSU will play another Pac-12 turned Big Ten team on Sept. 21, when UCLA comes to Tiger Stadium.

• Georgia and Alabama meet Sept. 28 in Tuscaloosa, in a rematch of this year’s SEC championship game. It will be in primetime on ABC, with a 6:30 p.m. kickoff.

• Although they’re changing leagues, Texas and Oklahoma will continue their Red River Rivalry series against each other. They’ll square off in Dallas on Oct. 12.

Two other rivalry games, Ole Miss at LSU and Florida at Tennessee, are also scheduled for that day.

• Another protected rivalry game that will likely have championship implications is Nov. 9, when Alabama goes to Baton Rouge to play LSU.

• In addition to the Egg Bowl on Thanksgiving weekend, a number of other traditional rivalry games — both in and out of conference — are scheduled. One of the most intriguing is Texas at Texas A&M. The schools will play for the first time since Texas A&M left the Big 12 to join the SEC in 2012. It was a bitter split that caused a series that began in 1894 to go on hiatus for more than a decade.

• Also on Thanksgiving weekend, Oklahoma will play at LSU. It’ll be the fourth time the teams have played each other, but the first on either school’s campus — or in the regular season. They met in the the Sugar Bowl in 1949 and 2003, and the College Football Playoff semifinals in Atlanta in 2019. LSU has won two of their three meetings.

2024 Ole Miss schedule
Aug. 31 – vs. Furman
Sept. 7 – vs. Middle Tennessee
Sept. 14 – at Wake Forest
Sept. 21 – vs. Georgia Southern
Sept. 28 – *vs. Kentucky
Oct. 5 – *at South Carolina
Oct. 12 – *at LSU
Oct. 19 – Open date
Oct. 26 – *vs. Oklahoma
Nov. 2 – *at Arkansas
Nov. 9 – *vs. Georgia
Nov. 16 – Open date
Nov. 23 – *at Florida
a-Nov. 30 – *vs. Mississippi State
*Southeastern Conference games
a – Date subject to change

2024 Mississippi State schedule
Aug. 31 – Eastern Kentucky
Sept. 7 – at Arizona State
Sept. 14 – Toledo
Sept. 21 – *Florida
Sept. 28 – *at Texas
Oct. 5 – Open date
Oct. 12 – *at Georgia
Oct. 19 – *Texas A&M
Oct. 26 – *Arkansas
Nov. 2 – Massachusetts
Nov. 9 – *at Tennessee
Nov. 16 – Open date
Nov. 23 – *Missouri
a-Nov. 30 – *at Ole Miss
*Southeastern Conference games
a-Date subject to change

About Ernest Bowker

Ernest Bowker is The Vicksburg Post's sports editor. He has been a member of The Vicksburg Post's sports staff since 1998, making him one of the longest-tenured reporters in the paper's 140-year history. The New Jersey native is a graduate of LSU. In his career, he has won more than 50 awards from the Mississippi Press Association and Associated Press for his coverage of local sports in Vicksburg.

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