DESTIN, Fla. (AP) 鈥� The Southeastern Conference is eliminating 鈥渃upcake weekend.鈥�
The league鈥檚 athletic directors voted at their annual spring meetings for everyone to play conference games on the second-to-last week of the regular season beginning in 2027.
It means no more Football Championship Subdivision or lower-tier Football Bowl Subdivision opponents before those rivalry games that typically take place during the final week of the season.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 the end of cupcake weekend,鈥� SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said. 鈥淲e never got that one sponsored, though.鈥�
SEC decision-makers have discussed dumping those late-season payday matchups for months. The conference expanded to a nine-game league schedule beginning in 2026, prompting the need for more significant matchups in late November.
鈥淚t鈥檚 nine conference games and a recognition that you鈥檙e populating more weekends,鈥� Sankey said. 鈥淎nd so you really cannot have odd numbers of open or non-conference dates later in the season because then that has a backward domino effect in where you place games early. We ran into some of that in the 鈥�26 season.鈥�
Only four SEC teams 鈥� Alabama, Auburn, Mississippi and Mississippi State 鈥� have such games set for this season.
The league and its television partners also started releasing game times for the early part of the season and drew criticism from Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek. Yurachek pointed out that his team will essentially lose a full day between a 9:15 p.m. kickoff at Utah on Sept. 12 and an 11 a.m. kick the following Saturday against Georgia.
鈥淭he assigned schedule will cost our student-athletes nearly a full day of rest and recovery that they would otherwise have available to them,鈥� Yurachek wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter. 鈥淭his is not simply a competitive disadvantage 鈥� it is a genuine welfare issue for the young men who represent our program and contribute greatly to the bottom line of our television partners.鈥�
He added that it 鈥渄emonstrates a clear neglect for the well-being of college athletes.鈥�
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