SEC AD’s vote to end traditional late-season cupcake feast
Following an eventful couple week so of interview jabs, social media trolling, and other non-newsworthy topics, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, league coaches and athletic directors came together in Destin for the annual spring meetings.
One of the biggest takeaways Tuesday was the abolishment of the SEC’s traditional “cupcake weekend” that’s been in placed conference-wide for decades.
With the SEC moving to a nine-game conference schedule, the league’s scheduling philosophy is changing in a major way.
Teams will still have room for non-conference games, but the days of parking a buy game on the Saturday before Thanksgiving appear to be finished.
“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 at the spring meetings in Miramar Beach, Fla. Tuesday night. “That’s the end of cupcake weekend in late November. We never got that one sponsored.”
For years, that weekend has been a soft landing spot for several SEC programs before rivalry week.
Instead of being thrown into another conference fight, teams often scheduled an FCS opponent or lower-tier Group of Six program as a tune-up before the regular-season finale.
The decision is an improvement at least in November as most fans considered late season non-conference games against FCS opponents a waste of time.
It’s one thing to have them at tune-up games in September, but to have them ahead of rivalry week waters down the college football product.
The Razorbacks have only played Group of Five opponents in the month of November. And last did so in three straight seasons from 2022-2024 by facing Liberty, Florida International and Louisiana Tech.
Dating back to 1992, Arkansas has never hosted a single FCS opponent the week prior to the season finale.
However, Arkansas has been known to host other Group of Five or former independents such as SMU (1992), Northern Illinois (1994), New Mexico State (2003), Troy (2009), UTEP (2010), Tulsa (1993, 2008, 2012), Coastal Carolina (2017) Western Kentucky (2019).