Alabama Football: Enough about the Tide schedule, look at Clemson

The old, bogus claims about the weakness of Alabama football schedules keep being repeated. So, for comparison, let’s look at Clemson.

Last week we looked at projected Top 10 teams and compared the 2019 schedules for Alabama football and the other championship contenders. The result was clear – the Alabama Crimson Tide, 2019 schedule has been unfairly characterized as the weakest among the top teams. In fact, the Alabama football schedule was not even close to being the weakest. The weakest 2019 schedule belongs to the defending National Champion, Clemson Tigers.

Since our review included all the projected 2019 National Championship contenders, we did not take a deep dive into Clemson’s scheduling history. We were content to just move on.

But in the week since, we noticed a new rash of social media claims about Alabama football having the weakest schedule again, as it did last season. So we are forced to refute the blossoming Balderdash with more details. Since Clemson seems to avoid a requisite amount of schedule scrutiny, we will drill down on the Tigers.

As we did last week, we will use as base data, Phil Steele’s preseason rankings of Top 25  and Top 25 teams. Steele does a solid job with his predictions and in our opinion is devoid of bias.

Looking at Steele’s preseason Top 50, Alabama football has six regular season games against Top 50 teams. They are LSU (7), Texas A&M or TAMU (17), Auburn (18), Mississippi State (24), South Carolina (40), and Tennessee (41). The Clemson Tigers have four – TAMU (17), Florida State (30), South Carolina (40) and Syracuse (42).

Take away the two common opponents and the average ranking for the remaining ranked teams for Clemson is No. 36. For the Alabama Crimson Tide, it is No. 22 (actually, mathematically the number is 22.5.) Comparison Point No. 1 – Alabama schedule is much tougher than Clemson

Let’s drill down deeper and look at Top 25 teams. Averaging cannot be used because Clemson only plays one preseason Top 25 teams – TAMU at No. 17. Alabama football plays four – LSU (7), TAMU (17), Auburn (18) and Mississippi State (24). Comparison Point No. 2 – Alabama schedule is much tougher than Clemson

Let’s drop back a season and look at some final numbers as they apply to both team’s 2019 opponents. Clemson’s 2019 regular season opponents were 79-71 in the 2018 season. The Crimson Tide 2019 regular season opponents were 74-74 in the 2018 season. Those numbers give Clemson a small edge. However, add in both team’s conference championship opponent and the results are very different. The Tigers move to 86-78 and Alabama football gets to 85-77. Comparison Point No. 3 – The two schools are almost equal

The last comparison point is a slam-dunk for the Crimson Tide. It is not based on data but on understanding the very real difference between the SEC and the ACC. In the SEC Championship game, the Crimson Tide beat Georgia. In the ACC Championship game, Clemson beat Pitt. In the final 2018 AP Poll, Georgia (11-3) finished tied for No. 7. Pitt at 7-7 was so unranked, it was not even if the “others receiving votes” category. For added perspective, consider this – among the 14 “others receiving votes” were Appalachian State, UAB, Troy and Georgia Southern.

As the post linked above shows, congratulations to the Clemson Tigers on the 2018 National Championship is fully deserved. The best team won. But it was not the team with a tougher schedule than Alabama football – and it will not be in 2019 either.