Three Things: LSU’s 2026 schedule

By Hunt Palmer

I’ll be honest. This looks brutal on paper.

The SEC announced its 2026 football schedule last night, and it’s the first time we’ve gotten a look at a nine-game SEC slate. It’s a league that has put seven different programs in the first two College Football Playoffs. That number doesn’t include LSU, Florida and Auburn which have won national titles in the no-so-distant past or Vanderbilt who just went 10-2.

When I saw LSU’s, my immediate thought was to be extremely concerned with the difficulty. Then I saw Alabama’s middle stretch of “Georgia, at Tennessee, Texas A&M, Bye, at LSU”. And I saw A&M finish of “at Alabama, at South Carolina, Tennessee, at Oklahoma, Texas”.

That’s when I realized this is going to be a bear for everyone.

I’m fully aware that we don’t know much of anything in December. If you’d told me two years ago at this point that the country needed to be on alert about Indiana and Vanderbilt, I’d have laughed. But this time of year we can work off of coaches and traditions with the understanding that roster volatility changes everything in the offseason.

Here are my three prevailing thoughts on LSU’s 2026 schedule.

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Lane Kiffin doesn’t have time to ease into his tenure at LSU. His defense is going to lose upwards of seven starters, and it’s a brand new offense. Time to gel? Nope. The Tigers open with Clemson who will be very talented. After Week 2 against Louisiana Tech the college football world will fixate on Oxford, Miss., for Kiffin’s return to Ole Miss. Maybe Trinidad Chambliss plays quarterback for Ole Miss. Maybe he plays for LSU. Maybe he’s the Houston Texans backup. Who knows about personnel, but that will be the most rabid environment in college football next fall.

The following week LSU returns to take on Marcel Reed and Texas A&M who ended the Brian Kelly era.

I was hoping for a pair of manageable games in September to allow LSU’s roster and coaching turnover a chance to get its collective feet on the ground.

That didn’t happen.

BYE BREAKDOWN

The double-bye schedule has been in effect for a couple of seasons, but we’ll go back down to one next year. LSU will place its open date on Halloween as it has been for over a decade. That gives the Tigers a week off after eight games and in front of the Alabama game.

That makes sense from a games played perspective and an opponent perspective. Alabama isn’t the sure-fire monster it was under Saban, but that’s going to be a good football team in the fall.

As far as opponents go, LSU will play two of its nine league games against teams coming off a bye — Alabama and Mississippi State. The Crimson Tide has mirrored LSU with that open date over the years. It’s made as much sense for them as it has LSU. State will be in Year 3 under Jeff Lebby and making the Bulldogs’ first trip to Death Valley since 2022.

BUCKLE UP, AND BUNDLE UP

LSU finish is brutally tough and may be brutally cold.

The Tigers’ last four games are Alabama, Texas, at Tennessee and at Arkansas. That’s three programs who have been in a playoff in the last two years and then a Thanksgiving reunion with Arkansas. Yikes.

Texas finally comes to Baton Rouge after COVID killed the 2020 return trip. LSU hasn’t played in Knoxville since the monsoon in 2017. That will have been nine years in the rearview by the time they kick it off in the chilly Smokies. Speaking of chilly, late November games in Knoxville and Fayetteville may not be too kind to a bunch of kids from Thibodaux and Destrehan.