🏈 You can change one thing about Bama's football scheduling. What is it and why?

[Che Boludo]

Play the Barn 1st or 3rd game every year. (wouldn't be that great to open when there are so many great teams to open at a neutral site - forgetting 2019). But would love to have this super hype game to lead into the season

I've advocated for this for a longtime.

In fact, I'd love to see rivalry weekend kickoff the season. Eliminates most of the "injury" excuses and provides a huge focus for fall camp. Further, it limits the damage and emotional hangover associated with heated rivalries from spilling over into CG weekend.

Minor change but huge effect. Just switch rivalry weekend with the marquee OOC opponents (acknowledging some rivalries are OOC). Closing with a big OOC matchup is a nice preview to conference strength going into bowl season, could influence CFP committee before final votes, and provides a big game home and home or neutral site for those that might not be bowling.

 

[TUSKtimes]

These teams you've metioned here include three decent teams. The rest weren't any good. Bigger names, yes. Better opposition? No.

Take those three Miami teams and their seasons combined and their record is less than .500: best year 6-5. A Southern Miss team that beat Bama so that's significant, but not so much if it's taken in context. LSU here isn't any good, at all. Their best wins in those two years were against 7 win teams. Hell, in '78 they didn't beat a team with a winning record.

Notre Dame and Penn State are the only teams in this list we can say "had a pulse." There's P5 teams here--not very good ones though.

All of them look better than Mercer. They look better than the Citadel and Louisiana Lafayette too. If these folks were more dangerous than a power 5 team, which is most of your argument, coach Saban would have scheduled Boston College and Pittsburg in their place. He's more than aware of teams that can grab you by the jugular. I'm a very strong believer in what I see too.

 

[JoshB]

No more FCS schools. Period.

Find a P5 school for the week before Auburn to start.

Doesn't necessarily have to be a Power 5. One Sun Belt (or the like) school a year is fine. Im sorry man but no SEC team needs to be playing these FCS schools. Not even Kentucky.

 

[TerryP]

These teams you've metioned here include three decent teams. The rest weren't any good. Bigger names, yes. Better opposition? No.

Take those three Miami teams and their seasons combined and their record is less than .500: best year 6-5. A Southern Miss team that beat Bama so that's significant, but not so much if it's taken in context. LSU here isn't any good, at all. Their best wins in those two years were against 7 win teams. Hell, in '78 they didn't beat a team with a winning record.

Notre Dame and Penn State are the only teams in this list we can say "had a pulse." There's P5 teams here--not very good ones though.

All of them look better than Mercer. They look better than the Citadel and Louisiana Lafayette too. If these folks were more dangerous than a power 5 team, which is most of your argument, coach Saban would have scheduled Boston College and Pittsburg in their place. He's more than aware of teams that can grab you by the jugular. I'm a very strong believer in what I see too.

Okay. How's he going to schedule any one of the two teams you've mentioned in place of the Citadel? Or Mercer?

Again. Find an opponent for that week before Auburn. You can't. There's only one P5 team that isn't playing a conference game that weekend and I guaran-damn-tee you UNC doesn't want another P5 team on their schedule that late in the season.

I've never suggested "If these folks were more dangerous than a power 5 team, which is most of your argument, coach Saban would have scheduled Boston College and Pittsburg in their place. I've never even hinted around such a thought.

I am saying all of these complaints about playing Mercer are useless. There are no other teams available.

 

[TerryP]

No more FCS schools. Period.

Find a P5 school for the week before Auburn to start.

Doesn't necessarily have to be a Power 5. One Sun Belt (or the like) school a year is fine. Im sorry man but no SEC team needs to be playing these FCS schools. Not even Kentucky.

But they are playing conference games. You can't change that. Bama can't change that. I did the research on it a few months ago for this season. @252BAMA did for the '16 and '17 season.

Shit, Josh. We're looking at the last few years and seeing Bama playing one of the toughest schedules in the nation. But, let's make it even tougher? It makes no sense. Why? Because some mediot starts yelling about the schedule?

Screw that. Let the rest of the SEC catch up. It's not our University's responsibility to make things tougher when the competition is what it is.

 

[TerryP]

Minor change but huge effect

It wouldn't be a minor change. It would be a change across the board in conference scheduling.

 

[TUSKtimes]

Okay. How's he going to schedule any one of the two teams you've mentioned in place of the Citadel? Or Mercer?

Again. Find an opponent for that week before Auburn. You can't. There's only one P5 team that isn't playing a conference game that weekend and I guaran-damn-tee you UNC doesn't want another P5 team on their schedule that late in the season.

I've never suggested "If these folks were more dangerous than a power 5 team, which is most of your argument, coach Saban would have scheduled Boston College and Pittsburg in their place. I've never even hinted around such a thought.

I am saying all of these complaints about playing Mercer are useless. There are no other teams available.

Then why spend all that time making this argument?

These teams you've metioned here include three decent teams. The rest weren't any good. Bigger names, yes. Better opposition? No.

Take those three Miami teams and their seasons combined and their record is less than .500: best year 6-5. A Southern Miss team that beat Bama so that's significant, but not so much if it's taken in context. LSU here isn't any good, at all. Their best wins in those two years were against 7 win teams. Hell, in '78 they didn't beat a team with a winning record.

Notre Dame and Penn State are the only teams in this list we can say "had a pulse." There's P5 teams here--not very good ones though.

When scheduling FCS teams for all power 5 teams are not allowed, that is one solution. When having to schedule 2 power 5 teams for our OOC schedule is another. Playing 9 conference games is another part of the solution. Planning a bye before the barner game is another. When the schedule rules change universally, this argument you keep making about we can't find anyone to play will go away.

 

[ElephantStomp]

The rest of the SEC needs to play better. Plain and simple. When the SEC was good and considered the toughest conference nobody was bitching about the schedule, but now that the rest of the SEC is shit now that’s all you hear.

 

[TerryP]

When the schedule rules change universally, this argument you keep making about we can't find anyone to play will go away.

Which is exactly what I've been saying for years now. A lot of people bitch about who is scheduled when UA has no control over other conferences. But, Bama needs to improve their schedule.

I've asked repeatedly, how? I've looked many a time to find an example of where someone had laid out how it would work. There's not a single example out there.

Here you've admitted it's going to take a universal change for schedules to change yet we still see complaints on who Bama is playing. There is no "have your cake and eat it to" scenario here.

The idea of waiting until the 12th week to take a bye is asinine.

The rest of the SEC needs to play better. Plain and simple. When the SEC was good and considered the toughest conference nobody was bitching about the schedule, but now that the rest of the SEC is shit now that’s all you hear.

And there's the truth of the matter. What's the difference between Bama beating Vandy 55-0 and beating Mercer 55-0? The name? The only people who care about this are those who are caught up in others perceptions.

It's just like the '41 title: too many people caught up in what other people think. With the scheduling, it's never taken in context.

 

[TerryP]

Well, I was recently told that I can't use vacation in the fall/winter (pretty much from late August to May) so I'm kind of out of luck until I quit which is seeming more likely by the day :over:

what kind of shit is that?! what does it matter WHEN you take YOUR vacation?!

sometimes companies blow my mind with their rules.

The guy I report to at work tried to do something similar to me this past fall. It was basically a "mandate" that I'd have to work on Saturday nights. I agreed, sort of. Let's put it this way, I didn't raise hell when he told me what the plans were.

BUT, I had 14-15 personal days in the bank. So, the next day I went to his office and gave him the list of personal days I'd need last fall--they happened to be every Saturday, back to back to back to back. Oh. He was pissed. But, it's pretty clear in the way personal days are handled--it's personal, no questions.

Still laughing a bit at the whole thing...still got the day to watch football and got paid.

 

[TUSKtimes]

The idea of waiting until the 12th week to take a bye is asinine.

I think so, but it is an option. So is the double bye. We use to have them when we only played 11 games, they would certainly be much more timely at 12. I believe we had a double bye a few seasons ago. So we get an extra week of football, who would be mad at that? The NFL found it profitable to extend the season an extra week with their bye, why not college football? More rest, fewer injuries, a lot more TV money.

So far, I have introduced a number of items that would completely solve this inability to act on what has become, at times, pansy football. Coach Saban has made it clear he wants to toughen things up with the schedule, but only if everyone has to do it. So solution after solution has been uttered, time after time. These are not hard problems to solve, but it's college football, and they are dripping with politics, as usual.