Dan Lanning’s comments come after Ducks beat USC while SEC teams faced cupcake opponents before rivalry weekend

PublishedNovember 26, 2025 4:30 PM EST•UpdatedNovember 26, 2025 3:36 PM EST

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It’s become one of college football’s most storied traditions. Each year, as the calendar turns to late November, a number of SEC programs engage in a cherished ritual: scheduling an extra bye week in the weekend before their rivalry games.

Just look at some of the high level opponents SEC teams gave themselves this past weekend: 

Charlotte (vs. Georgia)Samford (vs. Texas A&M)Eastern Illinois (vs. Alabama)Mercer (vs. Auburn)Coastal Carolina (vs. South Carolina)Western Kentucky (vs. LSU)

Georgia played UMass in Week 13 in 2024, with Tennessee going all out by playing UTEP. The 2023 season might have been peak cupcake weekend. 

Chattanooga at AlabamaGeorgia State at LSUNew Mexico State at AuburnFIU at ArkansasUL Monroe at Ole MissSouthern Miss at Mississippi StateAbilene Christian at Texas A&M

Must be nice. And after years of this practice, effectively giving top players a week off to rest, recover, and prepare for a much bigger game the following weekend, opposing coaches in other conferences are starting to complain about it. Like Oregon Ducks head coach Dan Lanning, whose team had to play a hard-fought game against a top-15 opponent in the USC Trojans.

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Oregon Ducks and USC Trojans

EUGENE, Ore. – The line of scrimmage between the Oregon Ducks and the Southern California Trojans during the second half at Autzen Stadium on November 22, 2025. (Photo by Tom Hauck/Getty Images)

Dan Lanning Goes After SEC Late-November Cupcake Scheduling

After Saturday’s game, which resulted in a 42-27 win for Oregon, Lanning talked about the scheduling practices in the SEC and how it disadvantages his program and others like it.

“I think the proof’s in the pudding, right? We played a good team, we beat them, all we can do next week is try to do the same thing,” Lanning said. “And this conference [Big Ten] is a really good conference, it’s competitive. We didn’t play Chattanooga State today, like some other places. We competed. That being said, it’s tough playing nine conference games, it’s tough playing in this league. And we got to take advantage of playing a good team today and attacking that.”

To be fair to Lanning, none of the SEC teams scheduled Chattanooga in November this year. That was Alabama last season. 

Many SEC fans will respond to such criticism with assertions that their schedules are harder than other schools, because they play other programs with SEC patches on their uniforms. And to some extent, that’s true. The SEC, especially this year, has a deep middle class of teams that have talent and difficult home environments. But the issue with the time-honored tradition they’ve developed is that the timing of it provides significant advantages.

Oregon had several key players get hurt in the game against USC, and now has to go play a rivalry game against the Washington Huskies, in one of the toughest road environments in the country. There was no effective bye week against a high school team this past weekend where the Ducks could pull their starters at halftime. Or even earlier. 

There’s also the travel benefit. All these SEC cupcake games are scheduled at home, meaning those programs, who already enjoy massive travel advantages over the other conferences, didn’t have a bus trip or flight to make ahead of rivalry weekend. All these marginal benefits add up, which is why Lanning referenced it. Replace Chattanooga with a ninth conference game, and the SEC’s records start to look different. That ninth conference game is set to start soon, and fans are simply not prepared for how many more losses the conference will take as a result.Â