<p>*TUSCALOOSA – SEC athletic directors agreed that Alabama’s 2010 football schedule put the Crimson Tide at a competitive disadvantage.</p>
<p>It had nothing to do with the fact Alabama faced eight top-25 opponents, or that five of those teams were ranked in the top 10. The Crimson Tide faced six opponents that had open dates the week before, and lost three of those games.</p>
<p>Athletic directors met in December 2009 after Alabama had brought the issue to light, and ultimately voted unanimously that no school would have to face more than three SEC teams coming off bye weeks in future seasons. </p>
<p>“The conference and the commissioner made an effort again to try to help us,” Alabama athletic director Mal Moore said. “At that late a date it was very hard to move the games or get them rescheduled. This year coming up, their efforts have helped us.”</p>
<p>This season, UA will play just three teams with open dates prior to facing the Crimson Tide – Vanderbilt (Oct. 8), Ole Miss (Oct. 15) and LSU (Nov. 5).
*</p>
<p>This is great! Thanks for posting, m2ck. I’ll subscribe to the email updates as part of my constant effort to increase my football knowledge before I get to Bama next fall.</p>
<p>Well, they’re playing Samford, which is nearly a bye since the starters only play for about a third of the game. It’s actually arguably better, since it’s equivalent to a scrimmage meaning that the players don’t suffer (as much of) a slump. Their schedule is actually more back-end-heavy than ours, since they play Georgia while we play Mississippi State, but for all intents and purposes this makes the schedules just about even.</p>
<p>The funny thing is that after we found out about it last year, Saban asked for an internal investigation, and they found that it didn’t matter much. A few minutes of checking indicates that since Saban took over, we’re 13-5 (72%) in games where we played the previous week and the opponent did not and 30-6 (83%) otherwise (including games that were the other way around and ones where both had byes prior). So there seems to be an advantage, but there are too many lurking variables to say that it’s major.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, it’s awesome that they voted unanimously to do this (especially since it means the very schools causing the problem admitted that it was bad), and very classy of Auburn to move its bye date. Actually, their AD spoke out about it early on, saying it wasn’t fair and he’d hate for Auburn to have to do that (side note: I bet they wouldn’t have gone undefeated if they played six teams with a bye prior).</p>
<p>This was one of those seasons for Auburn where it all just came together…Newton, Fairley, a senior OL, and no shortage of luck all contributed. Remove any of those factors and I don’t see it happening. A little like our 09 season (Cody saves the day with not one, but TWO blocked FGs in a 2-point win). Clemson was a dropped TD from winning (and a missed FG from tying in OT) and Miss St and Kentucky weren’t exactly far. And I certainly don’t need to explain the implosion that was the IB…</p>
<p>It’s okay, it took Auburn 66 years to win a NC (despite paying players) and another 53 to win another (despite paying players). By my calculations, we can expect Bama to win it all in 2020 while Auburn will be waiting until 2070. We’ll let them have this one. :P</p>