The Pittsburgh Steelers began their first day of organized team activities (OTAs) on Tuesday, and some players are feeling Aaron Rodgers’ absence more than others.

Linebacker Patrick Queen told reporters Tuesday that, though he believes in the quarterbacks the team already has in the building, he’d still like to call the veteran gunslinger his teammate.

‘I’m fine with the guys we got right now,’ he said. ‘But … when I was little, I was a fan of Aaron Rodgers. So it would be cool to have him on the team and stuff, but at the same time, the three guys we got right now, I’ll roll with them.’

Rodgers, it should be noted, is still a free agent. But the connection he’s had with Pittsburgh all offseason looms especially large as the team’s offseason training program gets underway.

In late March, Rodgers reportedly spent six hours at the Steelers’ team facilities meeting with head coach Mike Tomlin and general manager Omar Khan. He eventually left without a deal.

A few weeks later, Rodgers joined the ‘Pat McAfee Show’ and disclosed that he was dealing with personal matters, which have delayed his decision about whether he will play in 2025. Sportswriter Ian O’Connor, who wrote a biography on Rodgers, said earlier this month that he expects Rodgers’ personal issues to be cleared up by the time the Steelers begin their minicamp in June.

Team owner Art Rooney II has also recently told reporters multiple times that he and the team will wait ‘a little while longer’ on Rodgers to make a decision. So as the team’s offseason workouts start without Rodgers present, the door is not necessarily closed on a deal.

For now, the three quarterbacks the Steelers have on their roster are Mason Rudolph and Skylar Thompson, both of whom signed with the team this offseason, and Will Howard, Pittsburgh’s 2025 NFL Draft sixth-round pick.

Rudolph has the most starting experience between the three (18 games) and played five seasons with the Steelers prior to joining the Tennessee Titans last year. He re-signed with Pittsburgh on a two-year, $8 million deal in March.

In 2024, Rodgers’ second and final year with the Jets, the veteran had a completion rate of 63% with 3,897 passing yards, 28 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. New York let Rodgers know the team planned to go in a different direction in February before releasing him in March.

PARIS, May 27 — Coco Gauff forgot to bring her rackets to the court but reminded her rivals of her French Open title ambitions with a commanding win, while Daniil Medvedev lost his composure on a cold and blustery Tuesday as he crashed out in the opening round.

Last year’s runner-up Alexander Zverev had no such trouble as he cruised into the second round in his latest bid to win an elusive Grand Slam title after losing three major finals including at this year’s Australian Open.

Former Roland Garros runner-up Gauff provided early comic relief as the second seed grinned sheepishly and showed her empty bag to her entourage, who scampered to reunite her with her equipment before she thumped Olivia Gadecki 6-2 6-2.

‘Honestly, I thought they put the rackets in the bag, and my side court bag is filled with drinks and everything,’ Gauff told Sloane Stephens on TNT.

‘So it felt like I had enough weight. Then I got on court, and I opened the first zipper. I was like, ‘OK, no rackets’. The second zipper … ‘Oh my God. I went on court with no racquets’. Usually JC (coach Jean-Christophe Faurel) puts them in.

‘I’ll see what happened.’

The Madrid and Rome finalist made up for the delayed start by easing through the first three games and wrapped up the opening set with a battling hold after dropping her service earlier.

There was no looking back from there as Gauff tightened her grip on the contest despite the challenging conditions.

Gauff’s compatriot and former runner-up Sofia Kenin also advanced to the second round after a 6-3 6-1 win over French number one Varvara Gracheva, while Hailey Baptiste beat 2023 semi-finalist Beatriz Haddad Maia 4-6 6-3 6-1.

Former world number one Victoria Azarenka became the oldest woman in the professional era since 1968 to win a singles Grand Slam main-draw match with a 6-0 6-0 scoreline, after the 35-year-old dished out a double bagel to Yanina Wickmayer.

Marketa Vondrousova, the 2023 Wimbledon champion, breezed past Oksana Selekhmeteva 6-4 6-4 while sixth seed Mirra Andreeva beat Cristina Bucsa 6-4 6-3 to underline her title credentials after an inspired run to last year’s semi-finals.

On the men’s side, third seed Zverev sealed a comprehensive 6-3 6-3 6-4 victory over American Learner Tien, while 11th seed Medvedev was beaten 7-5 6-3 4-6 1-6 7-5 by Cameron Norrie.

Dusan Lajovic crashed out 6-2 6-4 7-6(4) to Kazakh lucky loser Alexander Shevchenko and Serbian compatriot Laslo Djere fell 6-3 6-4 7-6(6) to Australian ninth seed Alex De Minaur.

Three-times champion Novak Djokovic was looking to lift the spirits of Serbian fans with a victorious start in his bid for a record 25th Grand Slam, with the 38-year-old taking on American Mackenzie McDonald.

It was the end of the road for Bulgarian veteran Grigor Dimitrov, however, after the 16th seed pulled up with injury against Ethan Quinn to exit a fourth straight Grand Slam due to retirement.

MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. — The Big Ten’s preferred playoff model is a trojan horse for the SEC.

And still, the SEC keeps inching toward the horse’s belly.

If the Big Ten gets its way, the College Football Playoff would move in 2026 toward a format in which more bids are awarded via automatic selection.

The idea works like this: In a 16-team field, the Big Ten and SEC would get four automatic bids apiece, the ACC and Big 12 would get two auto bids apiece, the Group of Five would get one auto bid, and that leaves three at-large bids up for grabs. In many years, Notre Dame would snag one of the three at-large bids.

It’s easy to understand why the ACC and Big 12 dislike this model. It preassigns twice as many automatic bids to the Big Ten and SEC before the season even kicks off. It’s a model based more on conference brand prestige than in-season meritocracy.

What’s more difficult to comprehend is the SEC’s swelling support for this model.

On the surface, the auto-bid model sounds OK for the SEC.

Upon deeper consideration, though, a better model for the SEC’s quest to stockpile bids would be a 16-team model that assigns all bids via at-large selection. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey seems to understand this, but will his conference’s membership resist the auto-bid plan?

“For all the gripes about us having four (automatic bids), go back and look at the previous 11 years … we actually lose more spots under that (auto-bid) model than anybody else,” Sankey said Monday before his conference’s spring meetings.

Bingo. There’s plenty of reason for the SEC to be wary of this auto-bid model.

The SEC considers itself the toughest, most rugged conference. As such, it would be foolish to embrace a playoff model that restricts its members from accessing nine of the 16 bids.

“If you actually go back and do the research, that kind of format could cost us positions,” Sankey said.

Exactly.

The SEC would be wise to punt this trojan horse back across the Mason-Dixon Line.

Auto-bid College Football Playoff model could backfire on SEC

As recently as a few years ago, Sankey most favored playoff models that assigned all bids via at-large selection. He ought to keep up that energy, and make his membership understand that the best model for the SEC – and the best model for the sport – is a playoff model that limits automatic bids, instead of awarding more.

A 16-team playoff with all bids decided via at-large selection would be a boon for the SEC, if only the SEC could look past the Big Ten’s auto-bid bait.

Forget the auto bids. A 16-team, all at-large, playoff could be so simple:

∎ Devise a set of playoff selection criteria designed to identify the 16 best teams.

∎ Play the games.

∎ Have a committee select the 16 best teams based on the approved criteria, or bring back an analytical ranking system designed to identify the 16 best teams.

If last year’s playoff had included 16 teams based off the CFP rankings, the SEC would have qualified six teams. Six.

The SEC doesn’t need this 4+4+2+2+1 auto-bid format, and the ACC and Big 12 don’t want this format, and yet this idea keeps gaining steam within the SEC. Oh, what a delight for the Big Ten.

“I have, over time, talked about, hey, let’s just have fill-in-the-blank-number best teams,” Sankey said. “That goes back to 2019, 2020 playoff expansion (talks). I’ve reiterated that. I think our room has an interest in a different model.”

In other words, SEC athletics directors are positioning themselves to be duped by the auto-bid plan.

Here’s why SEC athletics directors might like auto-bid playoff plan

So, why might the SEC go for this auto-bid plan?

For starters, risk aversion.

Being assigned four playoff bids before the season begins would allow the SEC to go from eight to nine conference games without having to worry so much about win-loss records.

Also, auto bids based purely off conference results would encourage teams to beef up their non-conference schedule, because an auto-bid format reduces the penalty of non-conference losses.

Plus, the auto-bid plan would allow a conference to conduct play-in games.

If the Big Ten and SEC receive four automatic bids apiece, they could reserve two bids for the top two teams in their standings, then pit No. 3 versus No. 6 and No. 4 versus No. 5 in a play-in bonanza to determine the final auto bids.

“I think the word ‘hope’ is at the center (of this proposed format),” Sankey said. “How do you bring people into the conversation late in the season? So the idea of, could you have play-in type games continues to (surface).

“That’s about building interest and giving hope. Whether that’s the ultimate destination, we’ll see.”

That might sound OK in theory, but, what does that look like in practice?

Iowa, a team that went 8-5 last season, would have still been alive for the playoff on play-in Saturday, because the Hawkeyes finished sixth in the Big Ten standings.

South Carolina finished sixth in the SEC last season and was ranked No. 15 in the final CFP rankings. It would have qualified for a 16-team playoff, if all bids were awarded via at-large selection.

Iowa, by comparsion, was not ranked in the final CFP rankings.

So, it’s easy to understand why Iowa would love this auto-bid playoff idea. It’s easy to understand why a host of other mediocre Big Ten teams would like this playoff idea. Finish sixth in the Big Ten standings, sprinkle in some play-in magic, and, voila, a playoff bid emerges.

It’s harder to understand why the big, bad SEC would embrace a playoff format that most benefits Big Ten teams like Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota and Washington.

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.

Two of college football’s young stars will grace the cover of the sport’s next video game.

Ohio State receiver Jeremiah Smith and Alabama receiver Ryan Williams are the cover athletes for EA Sports College Football 26. The two players will be on the cover of the standard edition, while the deluxe edition features them and several stars, mascots and coaches from the past and present, including former cover stars in Reggie Bush and Tim Tebow, as well as Kirby Smart, Ryan Day and the Oregon Duck.

The game will come out July 10 for Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5. The MVP bundle of College Football 26 and Madden 26 allows buyers to have three-day early access, meaning those who buy it would be able to play the college football video game on July 7. The full reveal for the game will be released Thursday, EA Sports said.

EA Sports said College Football 26 will celebrate ‘real-world coaches,’ indicating they will be in the game for the first time.

College Football 26 will be the second edition of EA Sports’ famed franchise after it was revived last year. Prior to the game’s hiatus from 2014-2023, the cover athletes were only players that completed their college careers. But with the franchise returning with player likeness in the game and compensation given for it, it has allowed for current athletes to be on the cover. The players for the College Football 25 cover were Travis Hunter, Quinn Ewers and Donovan Edwards.

Now for the 2026 version, the cover will feature two players coming off unforgettable freshman seasons.

Williams burst onto the scene in a September showdown against No. 1 Georgia, in which he had six catches for 177 yards, including the incredible 75-yard go-ahead touchdown catch in the fourth quarter. He finished the season with a team-high 865 yards and eight touchdowns.

Smith proved he was a star immediately in his time in Columbus, but he came up big in the postseason for the Buckeyes. He had six catches for 103 yards and two touchdowns in the College Football Playoff first-round win over Tennessee, and he followed it with a monster performance in the Rose Bowl victory against Oregon. He had seven catches for 187 yards and two touchdowns against the then-undefeated Ducks en route to the season ending with a national championship. He had 1,315 yards and 15 touchdowns on the season.

‘A dream come true’

With the stellar start to their college careers, finding out they were selected was another thrilling moment for the young receivers.

‘Pretty much it’s a dream come true,’ Williams told USA TODAY Sports. ‘Just growing up and playing the game is something that you always dream about, so it definitely is super exciting.’

Williams added it’s one of the best accomplishments of his career so far, and it’s a tough one to rank for Smith; he did just win a national championship five months prior to the announcement.

‘Both is something special,’ he said. ‘I put the natty then the cover of the game because natty is something you’ve got to experience.’

Not only is it special to be a video game cover athlete, but it means a little more when it’s a game both stars frequently play. Both receivers said it was surreal to see themselves in a game and all of the little traits, like hometown and gear, be accurate in their presentation. Even if they’re in a real life Road to Glory, it doesn’t stop them from doing it virtually as well.

The game was positively received and extremely popular as EA Sports College Football 25 was the top-selling video game of 2024 and became the best-selling sports game in U.S. history, according to Inside Gaming. So popular that Williams said if he and his teammates weren’t at practice, meetings or class, they were playing the game in the team facility. Now they get to have some swagger when the next installment is released since the teammates of Williams and Smith will be playing a game with them on it.

Being a video game cover athlete is a great honor, but it also comes with some pressure. Prime example is the infamous ‘Madden’ curse from the NFL video game.

But in college football, it might be a blessing. Hunter went from cover star to Heisman Trophy winner, and Smith and Williams hope there’s some good juju awaiting them for the 2025 season. It’s hard to top a freshman season like they had, but they’re ready for the expectations that come with being the face of college football’s iconic franchise.

‘Going into the season, you know there’s going to be expectations because we’re cover athletes, we had good freshman seasons,’ Williams said. ‘Whatever the expectation, or whatever they think, pretty much I believe it’s going to happen on its own just because of the way we play football.’

(This story was updated to add a video.)

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Lionel Messi and struggling Inter Miami remain a work in progress with two matches remaining before the FIFA Club World Cup next month.

Inter Miami, which had the best regular season in MLS history last year, is seventh in the MLS Eastern Conference after a recent stretch of just two wins, three draws and five losses in their last 10 matches across all competitions.

Messi’s side desperately needs a victory, but it isn’t a forgone conclusion one could come Wednesday when Inter Miami hosts CF Montreal – ranked last place in the East, and second-to-last among all MLS teams.

‘Regardless of their position, I think if you watch Montreal’s games, you’ll see that in many of them they deserved much more than they got,’ Inter Miami coach Javier Mascherano said before Tuesday’s training session.

Montreal enters the match after relinquishing leads and settling for draws at home against two standouts MLS clubs in their last three matches: They finished 1-1 against Columbus Crew on May 14, and drew 2-2 against LAFC on May 28.

Inter Miami ousted LAFC from the Concacaf Champions Cup earlier this season. They beat Columbus Crew 1-0 on April 19, and will host the Crew on Saturday before preparing for the Club World Cup.

Inter Miami enters the Montreal match after storming back with two late goals – a Messi free kick, and another assisted by Messi – in a 3-3 draw with the first-place Philadelphia Union last Saturday. Overall, Inter Miami has conceded 23 goals while scoring 16 goals in their last 10 matches.

‘Above all, I want to prioritize and focus on ourselves, try to maintain what we’ve done in Philadelphia, improve in some areas – especially defensively – and get another win to boost the team’s confidence,’ Mascherano said.

When is the Inter Miami vs. CF Montreal match?

Inter Miami hosts CF Montreal at Chase Stadium on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. ET.

How to watch Inter Miami vs. CF Montreal live stream?

The match will be available to stream on MLS Season Pass via Apple TV.

Is Messi playing vs. CF Montreal on Wednesday?

Messi is expected to play against Montreal, but his status will be confirmed when Inter Miami announces its starting lineup an hour before the match begins.

How has Inter Miami fared in their last 10 matches?

May 24: Inter Miami settles for 3-3 draw at Philadelphia.
May 18: Inter Miami loses 3-0 at home to Orlando City.
May 14: Inter Miami plays to 3-3 draw at San Jose Earthquakes.
May 10: Inter Miami loses 4-1 on the road to Minnesota United.
May 3: Inter Miami wins 4-1 at home vs. the New York Red Bulls.
April 30: Inter Miami is eliminated after a 3-1 loss (5-1 aggregate score) against the Vancouver Whitecaps in their Concacaf Champions Cup semifinal.
April 27: Inter Miami loses 4-3 at home to FC Dallas.
April 24: Inter Miami loses 2-0 on the road to Vancouver in the first leg of their Champions Cup series.
April 19: Inter Miami wins 1-0 at Columbus Crew.

April 13: Inter Miami settles for scoreless draw on the road vs. Chicago Fire.

Messi to join Argentina before Club World Cup

Messi has been called up by the defending World Cup champions, and expected to play with Argentina for two qualifying matches for the 2026 tournament. Argentina will visit Chile on June 5 and host Colombia on June 10.

Messi, Inter Miami upcoming schedule

May 28: Inter Miami vs. CF Montreal, 7:30 p.m. ET
May 31: Inter Miami vs. Columbus Crew, 7:30 p.m. ET

Messi, Inter Miami schedule for Club World Cup

June 14: Inter Miami vs. Al Alhy, 8 p.m. ET (Hard Rock Stadium in Miami)
June 19: Inter Miami vs FC Porto, 3 p.m. ET (Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta)
June 23: Inter Miami vs. Palmerias, 9 p.m. ET (Hard Rock Stadium in Miami)

Luis Suárez and Lionel Messi have founded a new soccer club together that will compete in Uruguay, the Inter Miami duo announced on social media Tuesday. 

Suárez said he been working on the venture since 2018, and welcomed Messi into the fold in a video posted across the new club’s social media platforms. Suárez said the club has 80 working professionals and 3,000 members to ‘provide opportunities and tools for teenagers and children to help them grow.’

‘We hope that our club can start competing within the Uruguayan Football Association system. This is a very exciting goal for us, and it represents a huge step forward for me and my family,’ Suárez said. ‘We firmly believe in this project. We aim not only to provide sports facilities but also to serve teenagers from a humanistic perspective, giving them opportunities that we didn’t have when we were young. We will work hard with a calm mindset to turn this long, dreamed of project into a reality and participate in the competitive world.’

Messi, the Argentine World Cup champion, also shared a message in the club’s social media announcement. 

‘First of all, I’d like to thank Luis for giving me this opportunity to join this project,’ Messi said. ‘You’ve been working hard on this project for many years, and it has grown very significantly. It’s a great honor and joy for me to be a part of it with you now. Thank you for choosing me. I hope to do my best to contribute to the continued development of this project, and most importantly, to work side by side with you. Thank you very much.’

Together, Messi and Suárez won three Champions League titles among several others while shining together at FC Barcelona from 2014-2020. 

Messi, 37, joined Inter Miami in July 2023, followed by Suárez, 38, in 2024. Both are under contract with the MLS club through the 2025 season. It’s possible both could agree to contract extensions with Inter Miami later this year. 

Messi and Suárez will compete with Inter Miami during this summer’s FIFA Club World Cup hosted in the United States next month.

The Eastern Conference finals between the Indiana Pacers and New York Knicks has been many things. Above all else, it has been a battle of road warriors.

Headed into Tuesday night’s Game 4 showdown with the Pacers up 2-1, the home team is yet to have won a game in this series, with the Pacers taking the first two at Madison Square Garden and New York stealing Game 3 at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.

In fact, the Pacers and Knicks are tied for most road wins (six) in the NBA playoffs this year.

In order to avoid a 3-1 series deficit, which would give them improbable odds to extend their postseason run, the Knicks will have to — once again — tap into intensity and efficiency on the road.

Knicks’ road playoff success

What makes New York’s road success in the playoffs remarkable is how it has fought back from deficits to pull out games on the road; the Knicks have trailed in the fourth quarters in five of their six postseason road victories.

In three of those, the Knicks have trailed by 20 points, making them the only team since at least the 1997 playoffs to win three road games in which they needed to rally from that many points down.

“I think we’re just resilient,” forward OG Anunoby said Monday. “We don’t want to be down 20, but sometimes it’s just how it happens. We know it’s a game of runs, so I guess we just lock in and go on a run of our own.”

Overall, the Knicks are 6-1 on the road this postseason, tying a franchise record for most road victories in a single postseason. Aside from having to erase deficits on the road, the Knicks have also had to close out tight games with crisp execution; in those six road wins, their average margin of victory has been just 2.7 points.

So how, exactly, have the Knicks done it?

Their defensive effort and intensity has undoubtedly sharpened in those moments, but, after Sunday night’s victory in Game 3, numerous players like Anunoby, Jalen Brunson and forward Mikal Bridges cited increased communication as another element sparking these runs.

“It’s competition,” Brunson said Monday. “It’s the playoffs. In order to go through and do something special, you have to go through a lot of adversity, a lot of questioning mentally and internally if we’re going to do this. It can make or break teams when you’re going through things like that.

“I think obviously what we did (Sunday) definitely helps us. We saw we were on the brink of it looking pretty dark for us. The way we responded I think it brings us closer together.”

The only flip side of all this success on the road for New York is that it juxtaposes the team’s struggles at home; the Knicks are 3-5 at the Garden.

Pacers’ road playoff success

Not to be outdone, Indiana is also 6-1 on the road this postseason, though the Pacers haven’t had to claw back from deficits quite like New York. Still, comebacks have very much been a part of Indiana’s success on the road.

In Game 1 last Wednesday, the Pacers rode a 20-point fourth quarter from Aaron Nesmith and a Tyrese Haliburton miracle bounce on a score-tying shot to force overtime. The Pacers, though, were down by nine points with 55 seconds left.

For the most part, Indiana has relied on its speed and pace in transition to either get out to early leads in road games, or make late surges in fourth quarters. Similar to the blueprint the Knicks have used, however, it’s all about execution down the stretch.

“You get in an environment like this where there’s so much noise and so much going on and so many distractions if you allow yourself to be distracted,” Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle said Friday after Game 2. “We always talk about let the noise and all this other stuff be something to help trigger a narrowed focus — on your teammates, on your job within the team.”

The SEC faces a choice with its future football schedule: Opt for rivalry games like Alabama-Tennessee and Auburn-Georgia, or continue with cupcake games?
If SEC finally embraces a ninth conference game, it could come with a financial reward from media partner ESPN.
Rivalry games promote strength of SEC’s brand, but can conference’s membership resist the catnip of games against directional schools?

Picture the scene in “Shawshank Redemption” when Morgan Freeman’s character goes in front of the parole board, expecting to be rejected once again. He comments on the mockery of the proceeding and says bluntly, “You go on and stamp your forms, sonny, and stop wasting my time, because, to tell you the truth, I don’t give a (expletive).”

Yeah, that just about sums up my feelings on this upcoming SEC football scheduling debate.

Stay at eight conference games, or go to nine, I don’t much care anymore. Just put the schedule format to a vote in what will be a high-profile discussion item this week at the SEC spring meetings and make a decision.

As it stands, the SEC has approved no schedule format beyond the upcoming 2025 season.

The SEC carried on this scheduling charade for years since the announcement of Texas and Oklahoma joining the league. Some conference members previously pretended like they wanted an additional conference game, only to turtle up come voting time and preserve the eight-game conference schedule that’s supplemented with a feast of non-conference cupcake games.

HEATED MATCHUPS: Ranking the 10 best SEC football rivalries

BEHIND CENTER: Breaking down every SEC quarterback situation

Before this came up for vote the last time in 2023, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey implied that money wouldn’t be a driver in the scheduling decision. Only an idiot would believe that, though. Money talks, and some conference members were reluctant two years ago to add another conference game unless ESPN, the league’s media partner, put more cash on the table. ESPN didn’t sweeten the pot.

Sankey proclaimed before the schedule vote in 2023 that the conference at the vanguard of college athletics “does not stand still.” Days later, the SEC’s membership unanimously voted to stand still with an eight-game conference schedule for the 2024 and 2025 seasons. Eighteen months later, the Big Ten, which plays nine conference games, led all conferences with four playoff qualifiers. The jokes write themselves.

Rivalries hang in balance of SEC football schedule debate

The SEC cared so much about secondary rivalries like Auburn-Georgia and Alabama-Tennessee in its divisional era that it built a schedule format around maintaining those games. This next vote on the schedule will test how much resolve still exists for protecting centuries-long rivalry games.

A nine-game conference schedule would allow for secondary rivalries like those two and others like Texas-Texas A&M to continue annually. Forging ahead with an eight-game format would put those secondary rivalries under threat of interruption unless the league abandons its stated goal of having all schools play each other twice during a four-year period.

Rivalry scenes like the “Prayer at Jordan-Hare” and cigar-puffing Tennessee fans tearing down the goal posts and baptizing them in the river after a long-awaited win on “The Third Saturday in October” help make the SEC brand what it is.

But, maybe SEC members will decide this week that it’s more important to leave room on the schedule for Tennessee to play Furman and Kennesaw State – both will come to Neyland Stadium in 2026! – instead of Alabama, and for Auburn to tussle with Jacksonville State instead of Georgia.

And after the Mississippi beats Wofford 92-0 in 2026, coach Lane Kiffin can chant “S-E-C! S-E-C!” and declare the strength of the SEC (half of which the Rebels didn’t play) so strong that the Rebels deserve a playoff bid with their 9-3 record.

Few SEC teams opt for 10 power conference games in current format

Credit Alabama, Florida and South Carolina for cueing up two Power Four non-conference opponents in 2025 to accompany the eight conference games. If Florida smashes Miami and Florida State en route to a 9-3 record against a rigorous schedule, well, we might see a 9-3 playoff team for the first time.

By comparison, the 13 other SEC teams will play only nine Power Four opponents. That’s one fewer Power Four opponent than teams like Arizona and Central Florida will play.

If Missouri can manage to fend off Central Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana-Lafayette, Massachusetts, Vanderbilt and one more SEC team, the Tigers would wrap up bowl eligibility.

That’s the beauty of the eight-game conference schedule: Bowl bids await for average teams that can beat bad teams in their out-of-league slate.

The beauty of the SEC adding a ninth conference game would be the creation of more matchups fans want to watch and media partners want to televise.

One fewer cupcake game also would bolster the SEC’s case when it comes time to stump for at-large bids for bubble teams.

Even better, ESPN might now be ready to fork over extra revenue in exchange for that ninth SEC game.

The SEC could even time its rollout of a ninth conference game with playoff expansion that’s probably coming in 2026. A bigger playoff would reduce the risk of an additional conference game thwarting a team’s opportunity for playoff access.

Alternatively, the SEC could stay at eight, turn up its nose at rivalries, rebuff the prospect of a bigger payday from ESPN, protect the cupcake games, and maintain the daintier conference schedule that offers minimal resistance to the league’s weaker members securing a Liberty Bowl bid.

At this point, there’s not much left to debate. So, go on ahead, sonny, and call it to a vote.

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com. Follow him on X @btoppmeyer.