The SEC’s Greg Sankey confirms that ‘cupcake weekend’ is finally dead after moving to a nine-game schedule.
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MIRAMAR BEACH, FL – After years of eating “cakes” late in the college football season, the SEC has finally decided that its fun in November must end.
If you’re a football fan, you know exactly what I’m talking about when it comes to games played on the second to last weekend of the regular season in the Southeastern Conference.
These ratings usually include schools within the SEC that play lower-tier FBS, or FCS opponents, such as Alabama vs. UT-Chattanooga on November 21, 2026.
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In fact, these ratings are often taken as a ‘weekend’ or Saturday when fans know the starters will be out of the game.
The fans are the ones who are interested, they know that these terrible games will be played before the ‘competition weekend’, and they still have to pay a ridiculous amount of money to attend these organized tours that many would think should be a cheap trip to see their favorite team play.
“That’s where the cake weekend ended. We didn’t fund that one,” SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey joked Tuesday evening.
Now that the league is moving from an eight- to nine-game conference schedule, the SEC is hoping to capitalize on its new format.
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SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey speaks during a press conference before the celebration of the University of Oklahoma joining the Southeastern Conference in Norman, Okla., on July 1, 2024. (MAGN)
Moving away from these types of late-season games is also a way for the conference to show their fans more love, although media rights holder ESPN certainly appreciates the SEC finally pulling the trigger.
“It’s nine conference games and the recognition that you’ve had a lot of weekends,” Greg Sankey said Tuesday evening. “And you can’t have odd numbers of open days or non-conference days later in the season because that has a domino effect back where you put games early. We experienced some of that in the ’26 season.”
LSU Tigers CB Mansoor Delane celebrates a defensive stop against the Clemson Tigers at Memorial Stadium in South Carolina. (Ken Ruinard/USA TODAY Network)
The SEC joins others like the Big Ten in getting rid of the sweet tooth
Also known as “buying games,” schools use this late-season weekend to get an extra bowl-eligible win or add a few million to the athletic department’s budget, after they’re paid for schools that travel to town to lose.
It’s a move that’s consistent with the Big Ten, which didn’t water down the drain this weekend in November with the kind of matchup that makes season ticket holders wonder why they’re paying so much for their entire package.
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Unfortunately with the move to a nine-game conference schedule, some teams in the SEC have decided to ‘break up’ with upcoming power-four opponents, most recently South Carolina and North Carolina canceling their home-and-home series.
Ty Simpson of the Alabama Crimson Tide runs with the ball against the Indiana Hoosiers in the quarterfinals of the College Football Playoff at Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena, Calif., on Jan. 1, 2026. (Luke Hales/Getty Images)
There were also many others who decided that the extra conference game would be an incentive to rearrange the schedules, although there is still hope that the schools will continue to schedule these marquee games in the future.
Next season, we will see Ohio State take on Texas, Oklahoma take on Michigan and Alabama take on Florida State, just to name a few.
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But, as for the cakes that occupy the back half of the month of November, those days are history for the next season.
It’s about time.
