The SEC's move to a nine-game league schedule immediately led to Greg Byrne and Alabama cancelling a home-and-home series with West Virginia that was scheduled to begin in Morgantown next season. With Florida State already coming to Tuscaloosa, the Crimson Tide was never going to play 11 Power Four games. Not yet anyway.
On Tuesday, the SEC revealed the league opponents for each team for the next four years. The way it sets up for Alabama, you can go ahead and assume another scheduled home-and-home matchup will be cancelled in the near future.
As things stand in 2028, Alabama will play five SEC road games. In the non-conference, they will play Ohio State and UT-Martin at home. They are also scheduled to begin a home-and-home series with Oklahoma State with a road trip to Stillwater.
That would give Alabama six road games in 2028. That's not going to happen. Expect a cancellation of that series to be announced sometime in the near future, with a Group of Five opponent taking its place. It probably won't be officially announced until Byrne can secure a replacement opponent, and with Oklahoma State currently paying a buyout to get rid of Mike Gundy, they might be a little more stubborn in terms of cancelling this game in hopes of getting Alabama to pony up some cash.
The Oklahoma State series was in jeopardy as soon as the SEC moved to nine games. It overlaps with the second leg of Alabama's home-and-home with Ohio State and the first leg of the series with Notre Dame, both of which were always unlikely to get moved/canceled.
Other future non-conference games are in jeopardy too
Barring a change, Alabama can expect to play five SEC road games in every even-numbered year. While not officially announced, that would mean Alabama is likely to make scheduling changes in 2030, 2032, and 2034.
Alabama is scheduled to play at Georgia Tech in 2030, at Minnesota in 2032, and at Virginia Tech in 2034. Alabama has home Power Four games scheduled for those seasons against Notre Dame (2030), Arizona (2032), and Boston College (2034).
It's unlikely that Alabama will ever want to have a season in which it plays six true road games. Along with that making for a far more difficult schedule, losing the revenue that comes with seven home games is a non-starter for the athletic department.
Alabama could be slower to make adjustments to games that far into the future as they evaluate how much weight strength of schedule is given by the College Football Playoff committee.