Most understand all Alabama football had to do was beat Oklahoma and it is in the 12-team College Football Playoff, but it is healthy to have a conversation about why the Crimson Tide’s good strength of schedule actually hurt it.
Greg Sankey, the Commissioner of the Southeastern Conference, is very disappointed to not have Alabama as the fourth SEC program in the playoff. Greg Byrne, the Director of Athletics for the University of Alabama, is looking for a better way to maneuver the Tide’s schedule going forward so it can be in better position to participate in the playoff. Alabama’s head coach Kalen DeBoer was on The Next Round on Sunday, reacting to his team missing the playoff with a good strength of schedule.
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DeBoer said he will let Byrne lead the charge in terms of the future of Alabama scheduling opponents.
“It definitely wasn’t rewarded, it felt like.” – Kalen DeBoer when asked if he thinks the College Football Playoff committee valued Alabama’s strength of schedule and whether that will influence non-conference scheduling going forward#RollTide #CFBPlayoff pic.twitter.com/k3AHccuCVM
— The Next Round (@NextRoundLive) December 9, 2024
“We want to play in competitive games,” DeBoer said. “We want to play in the best games. It definitely was not rewarded, it felt like. Our schedule, the wins we had against teams that were ranked, now ranked, or maybe ranked at the time. … But I will let Greg administratively lead the charge and better understand what needs to be done for the future. I know we got some really highly profiled games against programs that traditionally have been very successful. We want to be a part of that. We want that to happen and the exciting thing about college football is being in as many big games as possible. We don’t want to back down to it, we want to be a part of it. Hopefully, it will be rewarded down the road.”
Alabama is scheduled to open next season versus Florida State in Tallahassee, Fla.
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It also plays Louisiana-Monroe, Wisconsin, and Eastern Illinois out of conference. The Tide loves playing marquee opponents, yet it is not in the playoff for the first-ever 12-team experiment. We will see how Byrne and DeBoer handle things moving forward.
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Stephen M. Smith is the senior writer for Touchdown Alabama Magazine. You can “like” him on Facebook or “follow” him on Twitter, via @CoachingMSmith.
