Will be interesting to see how the front office sets up schedules going forward (after next year). When the expansion was announced I was confident that we would eventually move to a 9 game schedule... more opportunities to play the other teams and more money. I wasn't surprised to see them keep it at 8 initially as sort of a transition period.
After this year I am not so sure a 9 game schedule happens, given the number of losses was clearly valued over SOS by the committee. But, we probably end up with some sort of automatic SEC tie-in to mitigate our SOS differences in a 9 game world.

I'll preface all this by saying I am a fan of playing all teams in the league more often, so I lean towards a 9 game schedule. I want to keep traditional rivalries as annual meetings and have schedule variability year to year. All of these can exist together, and it's pretty simple.

Continuing at 8 presents a couple dilemmas. Given we are locked in with Florida, if in 26-27 we simply play the teams we didn't play in 24-25, then we lose Auburn and TN for 2 years (and Texas would lose A&M for example since they are locked with OK). It also creates only 2 different schedules that teams could play which is boring.

I think a 3-3-3 setup works out best and here it goes:

Year 1:
- Three annual rivalry opponents (locked each year)
- One group of 3 teams played away
- One group of 3 teams played at home

Year 2:
- Three locked rivals (home/away flips)
- The 3 you played away last year, you meet at home.
- The 3 you played at home last year roll off your schedule
- A new 3 team group rolls onto your schedule for your away games

Year 3:
- Three locked rivals
- The new group of 3 from the prior year, you play at home
- A new group of 3 comes in for your away games

By Year 4 the three that rolled off after Year 1 are back on your schedule to complete the round robin.

Keep alternating this in perpetuity.

Benefits:
- You retain your traditional rivalries year to year
- Guarantee home/away matchups in back to back years (which is fun). Only year that doesn't work is in the 2nd year but that is just to get the ball rolling on this scheduling.
- Adds variability to your schedule year in and year out. There are four possible schedules to play versus only 2 if we just alternate one set of opponents every 2 years.
- Play all teams home and away in every 4 year period