Greg Sankey: SEC ADs vote to end 'cupcake weekend,' play league games in late November

The SEC’s non-conference “cupcake weekend” in late November is no more. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey announced the conference’s athletic directors formally voted to schedule all league games during the second-to-last weekend of the regular season beginning in 2027.

“Our ADs voted that our schools will play a conference game in that next-to-last weekend (of the regular season) beginning in 2027,” Sankey told reporters Tuesday night at SEC Spring Meetings in the Sandestin Hilton in Miramar Beach, Fla. “That’s the end of cupcake weekend in late November. We never got that one sponsored.”

The second-to-last weekend of the regular season has traditionally been reserved for SEC teams to schedule their final non-conference game of the regular season, generally serving as a non-competitive warm-up ahead of the following weekend’s annual rivalry games. The matchups, which often pit an SEC team against an FCS team or a lower-tier Group of Six program, have routinely drawn criticism from other Power Four fanbases that are usually playing conference games that same weekend.

But with the SEC’s move to a nine-game conference schedule beginning this upcoming season, conference teams have taken a harder look at what their non-conference schedule will look like moving forward. And while that has meant SEC teams canceling previously-scheduled Power Four home-and-home series, it appears it could also mean the end of lop-sided non-conference blowouts on the Saturday before Thanksgiving.

Case in point, Week 13 of the 2025 regular season included shutout victories for Alabama (56-0 over Eastern Illinois) and Texas A&M (48-0 over Samford), as well as Georgia‘s 35-3 win over Charlotte, South Carolina‘s 51-7 rout of Coastal Carolina, and Auburn‘s 62-17 win over Mercer — all FCS opponents. In fact, the only SEC team to actually have a competitive non-conference game that weekend was LSU‘s 13-10 win over Western Kentucky.

Of course, it’s not always utilized for FCS blowouts. There were several intra-conference league games played in Week 13 last season, including Oklahoma‘s 17-6 win over Missouri; Vanderbilt‘s 45-17 rout of Kentucky; Texas‘ 52-37 victory over rival Arkansas; and Tennessee‘s 31-11 drubbing of Florida in Gainesville.

Under the new SEC scheduling model, teams will play nine conference games — three annual rivals and six rotating opponents — every season. In addition, the league will continue requiring one non-conference game against either a Power 4 program or Notre Dame. And with most SEC teams already scheduling non-conference games throughout the first month of the regular season, it doesn’t leave a lot of room for “buy” games against FCS foes in Week 13.

— On3’s Nick Schultz contributed to this report.