Some SEC football coaches are in favor of the league moving to a nine-game conference schedule for 2026 and beyond. However, the room isn’t unanimous.

Arkansas coach Sam Pittman said he hoped the league would opt to stay at eight moving forward.

“I like the format as it is,” Pittman told reporters at SEC spring meetings. “We have eight. We’re playing eight SEC games. Gives us the opportunity to go to Memphis. Gives us the opportunity to have Notre Dame in. I know it’s all about, there’s a lot about finances. There’s a lot about making the fans, putting a product out there where the games are relevant, which I think we do each and every year.”

For SEC coaches, much of the trepidation over a move to a nine-game schedule stems from playoff access. After Alabama, South Carolina and Ole Miss felt they weren’t rewarded for strength of schedule in 2024, when they missed the College Football Playoff in favor of the ACC’s SMU, coaches and administrators became concerned that an extra league game could become a loss that keeps them out of the CFP.

Pittman emphasized that he’d like to keep on scheduling interesting non-conference games.

“We played Texas one year that I was here early,” Pittman said, speaking of a time before the Longhorns joined the SEC. “We’re playing Notre Dame. We went to BYU, had BYU back in here. So I think that there is a lot to be said about that. Our league has done very, very well in an eight-game format.”

However, there’s another factor in the nine-game schedule debate. If the league expanded the slate, ESPN could reportedly pay more money for TV rights, generating more revenue for each school, which Pittman said he was all in favor of.

He also said that the playoff aspect was a major concern for him.

“We want an opportunity to get more teams into the playoff, and playing a nine-game schedule is going to get each team one more loss,” Pittman said. “So, how that’s viewed by the committee. I think we’d all be excited to play nine SEC game, if the criteria of getting in the playoff was also, how many 6-6 teams did you beat? How many 7-5 teams? If there was a certain criteria by the committee that would allow us to do that and even strengthen our probability of getting in the playoffs.

The SEC will continue spring meetings through Thursday in Miramar Beach Fl., though it seems unlikely the schedule debate will be resolved this time around.