Greg Byrne weighs in on Alabama's future schedules, discusses challenges in finding big-name opponents
Adam Spencer | 5 years ago
The Alabama Crimson Tide have made waves recently, scheduling home-and-home series with Texas and Notre Dame.
The Notre Dame series will be in 2028 and 2029, with the games against Texas taking place in 2022 and 2023.
During SEC meetings in Destin, Florida, on Wednesday, Alabama AD Greg Byrne discussed the challenges of scheduling series like that, adding that the Tide are keeping their options open for the 2024 through 2027 seasons (via 247Sports):
"We still have a period between '24 and '27 where we're talking about some different scenarios," he said. "I'm sure neutral games will be part of those years. Will they be all four? I don't know yet. Depends on how some conversations go. One of the things that people often forget about when they have the scheduling discussion is there's an assumption that both teams want to play each other, and there's also an assumption that dates can work. Those two things create challenges in that process.
"But I think it is important for all of us as ADs and our coaches — and Coach Saban and I have very much been in lockstep on it — is finding games that our fan bases are going to be excited to be a part of, that our teams are going to be excited to be a part of. And that's worked for us."
With Alabama setting the tone with these big series, other programs that aren't currently scheduling Power 5 opponents could soon follow suit.
The games will be fun for fans to watch, and the winner will get big resume boosts in the eyes of the College Football Playoff committee.