The final week of the regular season, or as SEC commissioner Greg Sankey called it — cupcake weekend — will be ending following this season. The SEC athletic directors voted to play conference games during that week instead while gathering in Destin for the annual SEC spring meetings.
“Our ADs voted that our schools will play a conference game in that next-to-last weekend (of the regular season) beginning in 2027,” Sankey told reporters Tuesday at the SEC spring meetings. “That’s the end of cupcake weekend in late November. We never got that one sponsored.”
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Cupcake weekend, dubbed the SoCon invitational by some in the media, became an annual tradition for the league ahead of rivalry week. In 2025, Texas A&M hosted Samford. Auburn hosted Mercer. Alabama hosted Eastern Illinois. Charlotte, Coastal Carolina and Western Kentucky were a few more of the non-conference opponents in the conference.
The slate ended up being so bad that ESPN designated 3-7 Florida hosting 7-3 Tennessee as the primetime ABC game of the week. The network undoubtedly wasn’t a fan of that and very likely had some pull to make this change this week.
Tennessee’s 2026 schedule features an opening three non-conference games, followed by nine straight conference games to finish. The Volunteers will host Lane Kiffin and LSU during that traditional and final cupcake weekend.
Finishing things off in true SoCon invitational style this season will be Alabama hosting Chattanooga, Auburn hosting Samford, Mississippi State hosting Tennessee Tech and Ole Miss hosting Wofford.
