Money Quote: "The way college football is set up does not reward teams for going out and losing to Alabama, so the risk of a likely loss is not worth it for teams to play the Tide."
Roll Tide, Y’all. Roll Tide.
RLTW
Cry me a river.
Those same incentives apply to Clemson, Ohio State, Georgia, Oklahoma, ... and yet somehow those top programs schedule tough opponents.
Saban does not deny: The opponents are weak.
Its a ridiculously weak schedule for the 3rd best program in the country, Ga and Clemson rising the Tide receding, put your money on it. Saban feels it coming.
Playing Cullowhee (Western Carolina)
NCAA Division I?
Who’d a thought?
A false statement. Bama is just too cheap to pay the market rates.
Every now and then one of those cupcakes, jumps up and bites you in the ass.
Remember Troy at LSU?
Doesn’t the English Premier League (soccer) have a system where you are placed in an upper or lower echelon of the league based on your record at the end of the season? The NCAA should do the same. Upper echelon teams should have to play the majority of their schedule (9-10 out of 12 games) against other upper echelon opponents.
College football has become a system where there are a few perennial powerhouses, a few second tier teams and a whole lot of “never going to happens”.
So he’s saying that only weak teams want to play Alabama, and they don’t want a home field advantage? Okay, sure.
I thought low tier teams liked getting slaughtered by top tier teams because of the money they get paid.
Scheduling weak, out of conference teams worked out well for Michigan when it scheduled WCU’s weak neighbor from down the road in Boone, NC, Appalachian State, didn’t it?
SEC has more cupcakes than Gibson’s Bakery.
Yeah, sure, Bama can’t get anyone to play them except Little Sisters of the Poor and the Electoral College. I’ll buy that.
Alabama plays WCU.
Annihilation commeth.
Well that’s 4 games Alabama’s fans won’t need to watch. Bor-ing...
In baseball, this is called "spring training". Alabama gets 3 tomato cans who get paid enough to support for their sports programs for a year or 2 and a semi-respectable tune up (Duke).
And I thought that the NCAA ruled a year or two ago that 3 of those games (FCS teams, I assume) don't count towards the required wins for Alabama at the end of the year. Like they need easy wins to reach the minimum 6 games.
B—tch, b-tch, b-tch, b-tch!
That’s all these threads EVER are.
There should be a rule for posting to these types of threads:
First, declare your team.
(ME: Alabama, followed by Auburn. I live in Alabama and worked for 20 years at AU.)
Then make your comment.
I reject all the talk about stupid conspiracies and other nonsense.
Any given Saturday can be a win or loss for any team.
I always have hope my teams do well, and haven’t been disappointed for many years now. However, sooner or later, all good things to an end. I’ll still support the Tide and War Eagles (only the Tide in the Iron Bowl) but I don’t need to put down other schools or their programs to pump up mine.
That’s just little kid talk.
One of the services rated Alabama’s schedule 20th toughest in the nation. I think that’s about right.
And that is before the SEC championship game. And before playoffs. Assuming Alabama wins the National Championship game they would have ended the season playing, most probably, 3 top 10 teams in their last 3 games to win it. Hardly an “easy” path.
Why does Alabama not schedule more “top” teams? Because you would lose a home game every other year. Because those teams are gonna insist on a home and home.
The system does not reward Power 5 teams to lose to Alabama, but these creampuffs get rewarded quite nicely to go to Tuscaloosa and lose 40-something to 7. They know they are going to lose, but Coach Saban won’t run up the score on them because the second half is just a scrimmage for the third stringers. In return, they pick up a few million dollars that their athletic department could use in a variety of ways. Sometimes, they use the money, exposure, and experience to turn their teams into contenders in their conference. Just look at the third best team in Alabama. Troy used to be the creampuff, but then they started playing some of those Power 5 teams a bit too close for comfort, and finally they started taking the money and running home with a win. Neither Bama or Auburn will take a chance on losing to them and making Troy the third big dog in the state.
Roll Tide, and Down Irish
JUST DAMN.
Usually a team has 2 gimmes on the schedule.
3 at the most.
end conferences. Open play. same rules everywhere. It’s 2019, we have jet planes now Gomers.
Keep one or two traditional rivals and mix not up. Someone set rules about scheduling.
Everyone wants to play Arkansas tech and dance for a breather so what. When I SC or Stanford going to play different teams. Someone schedule San diego state and see ion your catch your breath.
Get a computer in her and schedule on algorithms.
Pay the players enough to justify the cars you seek them now.
Let’s update the sport and fire the ADs
Maybe college should give way to miner leagues or city team. M<aybe then UCLA and USC could be LA and win some games. The players could have their choice e of colleges and play for the local team (s)