Alabama Football: What SEC all-conference games mean for the Crimson Tide
By Ronald Evans
The SEC has decided and Alabama football may face the league’s toughest schedule.
On Thursday, the 2020 Alabama football season became more clear. The SEC Presidents and Chancellors decided the league would join the Big Ten and The Pac 12 in having conference-only games.
The Thursday decision was not unexpected. It had been widely reported the conference ADs were strongly (maybe not unanimously) in favor of the conference-only move. The SEC schedule will need to be revamped and was not made available on Thursday.
The biggest news was the decision to delay the season openers until Sept. 26. The SEC Championship Game will be pushed back also, to Dec. 19. Compressing the schedule, even with only 10 games does not leave many dates for future games to have COVID-driven cancellations. A conjecture is the schools are still not sure what to do about in-person classes for all students. Several college presidents around the country have already stated that football can’t be played if it is unsafe for students to attend classes.
The NCAA meets next week and may offer new guidelines on pre-season fall camps. The camps could be delayed or extended or both.
What we do know is Alabama football will play an opening season game on Sept. 26. Rumors about the revamped SEC schedules for 2020 have been circulating for a couple of days. The prevailing opinion is all current SEC games will be kept and the two added will be the two teams next scheduled in the SEC rotation. For Alabama football, that would mean added games against the Florida Gators and the Vanderbilt Commodores.
If the Alabama Crimson Tide is paired up with the Gators, the Tide’s schedule may be the toughest in the conference. With Georgia, LSU, Texas A&M and Auburn already slotted, adding Florida would mean the Crimson Tide would face the five toughest teams in the SEC. Not every school will add tough contests so some schools will get scheduling breaks.
Are there CFP implications for the Crimson Tide? Given the demanding (projected) schedule, would the Crimson Tide have to win the SEC to make the Playoff? Is it possible that for one season the CFP Selection Committee would decide to expand the Playoff field to six or eight teams? We are not alone in having no answers.
Yesterday we posed whether the ACC had out-maneuvered the SEC. Credit the SEC for not being pushed around and taking any heat for the loss of some, annual rivalry games.
Next. Was it just time to cancel the season?. dark
All Alabama football fans will anxiously await the new SEC schedule. Almost as much as we all await having football back.