Southeastern Conference

Before expansion, each SEC school played six conference games. Five of these games were against permanent opponents, developing some traditional rivalries between schools, and the sixth game rotated around the other four members of the conference.

From 1992 through 2001, each team had two permanent inter-divisional opponents, allowing many traditional rivalries from the pre-expansion era (such as Florida vs. Auburn, Kentucky vs. LSU and Vanderbilt vs. Alabama) to continue. However, complaints from some league athletic directors about imbalance in the schedule (for instance, Auburn's two permanent opponents from the East were Florida and Georgia — two of the SEC's stronger football programs at the time — while Mississippi State played Kentucky and South Carolina every year) led to the SEC reducing the permanent opponents to only one per team.

Under the current format, each school plays a total of eight conference games, consisting of the other five teams in its division, two schools from the other division on a rotating basis, and one school from the other division that it plays each year. All permanent inter-divisional games, with the exception of Arkansas vs. South Carolina, were played annually before SEC expansion in 1992.[18]

The following table shows the permanent inter-divisional opponent for each school listed by total number of games played (records through the completion of the 2009 season with Western Division wins listed first)[19] : Other league athletic directors have advocated discarding the current format and adopting the one used by the Big 12 Conference, where teams play three teams from the opposite division on a home-and-home basis for two seasons, and then switch and play the other three teams from the opposite side for a two-year home-and-home. However, the potential loss of such heated (and profitable, as the games are often shown on national TV) long-standing rivalries as Auburn-Georgia, Alabama-Tennessee, and LSU-Florida have scuttled such plans on the drawing board. The loss of the annual rivalry between Nebraska and Oklahoma had led some Big 12 athletic directors to make a push to adopt the SEC format for the Big 12 prior to the loss of Nebraska to the Big 10 Conference. The Atlantic Coast Conference followed the SEC's lead and went one step further, adopting the permanent rival format for both football and basketball (in the latter sport each school is designated two rivals).

Interestingly, before the institution of divisional play, many of Auburn's yearly rivalries were with teams in the East (Florida, Georgia and Tennessee), while Tennessee's yearly rivalries were with teams in the West (Alabama, Auburn and Ole Miss).

All-time school records
[27]

[ Championship Game
The logo for the 2009 SEC Championship Game. Alabama defeated Florida in the championship game.Main article: SEC Championship GameThe SEC Championship Game pits the SEC Western Division representative against the Eastern Division representative in a game held after the regular season has been completed. As of 2009, eight of the twelve SEC members have played in the Championship. Ole Miss is the only team from the SEC West to have not played in the SEC Championship Game, and Vanderbilt, Kentucky, and South Carolina have failed to play in the game from the SEC East.

The first two SEC Championship football games were held at Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama. Since 1994, the game has been played at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia. The team designated as the "home" team alternates between division champions; the designation goes to the Eastern champion in even-numbered years and the Western champion in odd-numbered years. As of 2009, the Eastern division of the SEC leads the Western division in overall wins in the championship game 11 to 7.

Bowl games
The post-season bowl game tie-ins for the SEC for the 2010 season are:[28]

Bowl selection procedures
If the SEC champion is selected to participate in the BCS National Championship Game, the Sugar Bowl is not required to pick the SEC runner-up but may select any eligible BCS team. However, since the BCS title game was moved to a standalone basis in 2007, the Sugar Bowl has selected an SEC team, and since 2008 has chosen the SEC runner-up (the 2007 Sugar Bowl featured LSU, who was not the SEC runner-up but was an eligible BCS team). However, since 2006, the Sugar Bowl has selected either a division runner-up (2006 LSU, 2007 Georgia) or conference runner-up (2008 Alabama, 2009 Florida), which has been the second highest ranked SEC team in the BCS standings.

Under SEC guidelines, unless the Sugar Bowl selects the SEC runner-up, the Capital One Bowl must then pick the SEC runner-up if that team has won two or more games than the next team in the selection order. The SEC runner-up has not played in the Capital One Bowl since Arkansas following the 2006 season.

After those selections, the Outback Bowl has the first choice of the remaining teams in the SEC East, and the Cotton Bowl Classic has the first choice of those left in the SEC West.

The Chick-fil-A Bowl and Gator Bowl pick afterwards.

The Liberty Bowl and Music City Bowl work together, along with the SEC office, to determine the seventh and eighth picks.

The Birmingham Bowl picks last. In the case that the SEC does not have nine bowl-eligible teams, a team from the Sun Belt will be selected instead.

At this point, the SEC is second in BCS Bowl appearances, with nineteen appearances, and first in all-time wins and winning percentage, with fourteen wins and a .722 winning percentage. The BCS Bowls include the Rose, Sugar, Orange, Fiesta, and the BCS National Championship Game.

Since the advent of the BCS National Championship Game format, the SEC is a perfect 6–0 in those games. The SEC was 2–0 in the games where the National Championship Game was played as part of the traditional New Year's Day bowls, and since 2007 (when the game was moved to a separate contest one week later) the SEC has participated in all four games and has won all four. Interestingly, the SEC team was ranked #1 only twice going into the game (the first contest featuring Tennessee in 1998 and the most recent featuring Alabama in 2009); the other four times the SEC team (LSU twice and Florida twice) was ranked #2.

Rivalries
The SEC members have long histories. Some of the football rivalries involving SEC teams include:

Player awards
Each year, the conference selects various individual awards. In 1994, the conference began honoring former players from each school annually with the SEC Football Legends program.

50th anniversary All-Time SEC Team
In 1982, the SEC Skywriters, a group of media covering the Southeastern Conference, selected members of their All-Time SEC Team for the first 50 years (1933–82) of the SEC.