Monday afternoon, the SEC released the first Alabama football game in the new fall schedule
Alabama football has a new opener for the 2020 regular season. The Alabama Crimson Tide was originally scheduled to open with USC and have its first conference game at home on Sept. 26, hosting the Georgia Bulldogs.
The opening game was revealed on the Paul Finebaum Show, Monday afternoon. The complete re-vamped 2020, SEC football schedule will be released Monday evening, also on the SEC Network. Taking part in the full schedule release broadcast will be Dari Nowkhah, Greg McElroy, Roman Harper, Laura Rutledge, Kirk Herbstreit, Rece Davis and others. The broadcast is at 6:00 PM, CST.
Alabama football fans will quickly realize, the six assembled SEC football experts include three with ties to the University of Alabama, including two former Crimson Tide players. Fans from other schools will no doubt whine about another perceived bias, favoring the Crimson Tide.
The Alabama football opening game is on the road at Missouri. Like the Crimson Tide, other expected top teams, Georgia and Florida open on the road. Georgia travels to Arkansas and the Florida Gators go to Ole Miss. What do those three games have in common? All three of the home teams have new SEC head coaches in their first games.
Other projected top teams, LSU and Texas A&M will open at home. Coach O will entertain Mike Leach and Mississippi State. The Vanderbilt Commodores will travel to College Station to take on the Aggies.
Tennessee travels to South Carolina and Kentucky goes to Auburn to round out the SEC’s season-opening weekend. Not every team will be pleased, but overall it appears the SEC ended up with a balanced lineup of games in the new week one.
Is traveling to Missouri a break for the Crimson Tide? Perhaps, Nick Saban and Kirby Smart could not have wanted to open the season against each other. The Missouri Tigers will be something of a mystery with new coach Eli Drinkwitz. A few weeks ago Bama Hammer rated the SEC head coaches. Despite Drinkwitz, having a strong last season at Appalachian State (12-1), we rated him as No. 13 on our SEC Head Coaches Power Ranking.
Drinkwitz is an offensive guy. He is also a product of the Gus Malzahn coaching tree. Has his early success come from adopting Gus’ quirky offense? If he is so unpredictably inclined, the Alabama football defense must prepare for anything.
The rest of the SEC 2020 schedule will also be interesting. Will the Iron Bowl be earlier than the customary last weekend of the season? What can be expected is even more coaches will complain.