šŸˆ Report: Old Dominion rejects offer (1.3MM) to play Alabama in 2015

Old Dominion recently turned down a $1.3 million payday from Alabama to play a game at Bryant-Denny Stadium in 2015, according to a report Thursday from the Virginian-Pilot.

The Monarchs, who have been playing football since 2009, will log their first season at the Football Bowl Subdivision as a member of Conference USA in 2014. Their 2015 non-conference schedule is full (Eastern Michigan, Norfolk State, North Carolina State and Appalachian State), and athletic director Wood Selig said he didn't see the need to rearrange it.

"We’ve already got 12 games,ā€ Selig told the Virginian-Pilot. "I’d certainly touch base with (coach) Bobby Wilder on this, but I don’t think playing a game against Alabama would be an advisable move given the infancy of our program."

According to the report, ESPN first reached out to Old Dominion to gauge its interest in the game.
Alabama's 2015 non-conference schedule currently includes games with Wisconsin (Dallas) and Louisiana-Monroe. It could potentially play Colorado State, which agreed to a game in either 2015 or 2017.

When Alabama approached Colorado State to play a game in 2013, the Rams' schedule was already full. To accommodate it, Colorado State rescheduled one of its games and ultimately played 13 in a single season. For their troubles, the Rams received $1.5 million and will receive the same payout for the second game.

In September 2012, Alabama coach Nick Saban expressed his frustration with the difficulty of scheduling games with non-conference opponents.

"Look, it's difficult, all right, because if you're not willing to go home and home with somebody, if you're playing a neutral-site game, you don't want to go home-and-home with other people," he said. "You've got to get people to come here and play. That's been very difficult for the next few years because the SEC's got to tell us who we're going to play and when before we can go and schedule other games."





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Sort of hidden in this write-up by McNair: According to the report, ESPN first reached out to Old Dominion to gauge its interest in the game.

The first time I recall ESPN getting involved with our scheduling was (as I recall) the spring of 2002 when they were involved with the talk between Bama and Hawai'i'. We've seen their influence on a few of our OOC games the last few years but those were against some of the college football powers.

Now, a game like Old Dom? I'm seeing this as the beginning of their influence in scheduling conference wide and wonder if it's a precursor to what we'll see with SECN programming.





<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>ESPN called ODU recently, asking the Monarchs to play Alabama in 2015. But ODU's schedule is already full. <a href="http://t.co/YB7GoAFAcz">http://t.co/YB7GoAFAcz</a></p>&mdash; Harry Minium (@Harry_MiniumVP) <a href="https://twitter.com/Harry_MiniumVP/statuses/449316346812461056">March 27, 2014</a></blockquote>
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