James Franklin finally got his wish — and a challenge — after the SEC announced a move to a nine-game conference schedule.

SEC athletic directors adopted a nine-game conference football schedule starting with the 2026-27 season, the league announced Thursday. The development comes as the CFP is set to implement new metrics in 2025 that place greater emphasis on strength of schedule,

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission named a senior military judge as enforcement director on Thursday, in what legal sources said was an unconventional pick for the top job policing Wall Street.

The SEC is moving to a nine-game conference schedule in 2026, ending a yearslong debate and potentially easing a path toward another College Football Playoff expansion.

For a long time, Beamer’s frustrations with the idea of the SEC moving from eight to nine conference games was that it really harmed the schools like South Carolina (Clemson), Florida (Florida State), Georgia (Georgia Tech) and Kentucky (Louisville) that already have a formidable Power 4 opponent built into their schedules.

There is now more uniformity across conferences in college football, and that could mean the SEC and Big Ten are one step closer to agreeing on the format of the College Football Playoff for the 2026 season.