The Southeastern Conference revealed their 2024 conference opponents for all 16 teams last week. Each of this year’s teams will play either Texas or Oklahoma as one of their eight regular season games in 2024. The conference will no longer be divided into East and West Divisions that has been in effect since 1992.The top two teams in the final standings will play for the football championship beginning in 2024.
Texas will host Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, and Mississippi State and will travel to Arkansas, Texas A&M and Vandy in 2024. Oklahoma will welcome Alabama, South Carolina and Tennessee and hit the road to Auburn, LSU, Ole Miss and Missouri in 2024. Texas and Oklahoma will continue the Red River Showdown at the State Fair in Dallas. This will be Texas’ and Oklahoma’s final season in the Big 12 Conference.
Mississippi State will host Arkansas, Texas A&M, Florida, and Missouri in 2024 while traveling to conference newcomer Texas as well as to Georgia, Tennessee and Ole Miss. The Bulldogs will also host non-conference games Arizona State, Utah State, Eastern Kentucky and Massachusetts. Mississippi State will not play LSU for the first time since 1943 nor longtime rivalries Auburn (1951) and Alabama (1947) during the 2024 season. MSU will have Ole Miss and Arkansas as their possible permanent three conference opponents after the 2024 season.
Ole Miss will have conference newcomer Oklahoma making their first visit ever to Oxford along with Kentucky, Georgia and Mississippi State visiting. The Rebels will be traveling to Arkansas, LSU, Florida and South Carolina. Ole Miss will travel to Wake Forest and host Furman, Middle Tennessee and Georgia Southern in non-conference games during the 2024 season. The Rebels will not play Vanderbilt for the first time since 1969 nor Alabama and Auburn in 2024. It looks as though Ole Miss’s permanent three conference games will be against Arkansas, LSU and MSU beginning in 2025.
The 2023 Football Media Days are less than a month off (July 17-20) as they will be held in Nashville at the Grand Hyatt. This will be the first time Media Days will be held in Nashville. Mississippi State’s Zach Arnett will make his first appearance on Tuesday, July 18, while two days later Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin will be the center of attention.
The Sun Belt Football Media Days will be on July 25-26 at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown New Orleans. A trio of Southern Mississippi players and head coach Will Hall will be in attendance.
The state of Mississippi will be represented in Omaha as we have three former high school baseball stars playing in this year’s edition of the College World Series. Stanford University sophomore Braden Montgomery established himself as one of the best players in the PAC-12 last year. The former Madison Central baseball star has even improved in his second season in Palo Alto as he smashed 17 home runs and is batting .336 for the Cardinals. The former 2021 Mississippi Gatorade Player of the Year is expected to be one of the top prospects in next year’s Major League Baseball Draft. Next up are Tennessee’s junior outfielder Kyle Burke of DeSoto Central High School of Southhaven and freshman hurler Aiden Moffett of Taylorsville High School.
The 50th Annual Mississippi Association of Coaches Hall of Fame induction ceremonies sponsored by BankPlus will be Friday at 6 p.m. at the Sheraton Flowood Refuge Hotel & Conference Center. The six new inductees are championship football coaches Marcus Boyles (Taylorsville, Pearl, Wayne County and Petal) and Jack Craft (Richton and Purvis) along with basketball championship coach George Willis (Simmons). They will join championship softball coach Jimmy Parker (Harrison Central), championship baseball coach Bill “Moose” Perry (Forest Hill) and championship track coach Karen Green (Pascagoula, Potts Camp).
Listen to Dale and Marshall Wood on the Brouhaha Sports Show that will be aired this Tuesday at 6 p.m. on WABO FM 105.5 in the Waynesboro area. This week’s guest is former MSU football player Royce Blackledge. To listen to the broadcast on your computer or smart phone anywhere in the world, go to Google Chrome, go to wabo105.com and click listen live. You may also go to The Brouhaha on YouTube to listen to archived shows. Dale has been writing sports since 1973. Contact Dale at ddmckee18@yahoo.com.
