ESPN: Alabama and Louisville will Open 2018 Season in Orlando

The only complaint I have is the venue. The Citrus Bowl seats 65K folks which means the 2 schools probably get 20K seats max vs the 30K seats BAMA gets at Boss Hogg Bowl. By the time you factor the band, player passes, university tickets and student tickets, Tide Pride will be lucky to have 15k seats and probably closer to 10k seats meaning 2 things:

1. Ticket prices being as high or higher than Jerry World
2. Demand will off the charts with the proximity to our fan base. These tickets will be as hard to get as CFP tickets.

WylieTexasTider said:

The only complaint I have is the venue. The Citrus Bowl seats 65K folks which means the 2 schools probably get 20K seats max vs the 30K seats BAMA gets at Boss Hogg Bowl. By the time you factor the band, player passes, university tickets and student tickets, Tide Pride will be lucky to have 15k seats and probably closer to 10k seats meaning 2 things:

1. Ticket prices being as high or higher than Jerry World
2. Demand will off the charts with the proximity to our fan base. These tickets will be as hard to get as CFP tickets.

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Seriously? SMH...

selmaborntidefan said:

The haters whine every cotton picking year!!!

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With the committee I think it's become a bit more than that though. Last year, a lot of what we heard centered around the SEC playing 8 conference games. Largely, that's blown out of the water after everyone saw how brutal the SEC schedule in fact was.

Now, they're just trying another approach. The goal ultimately is to make Alabama's schedule look weaker, so other schedules look weaker by comparison. In fact, last year there was a lot of fuss made over Michigan State and Oregon playing. That was supposed to be a really big deal for the playoff, and to hear some people talk even losing that game shouldn't mean anything because it was after all such a tough OOC game. This was of course contrasted with Alabama playing a (fairly competitive) West Virginia team coming off a bad season. This year it's Wisconsin though, one of the top Big 10 teams, you know kind of like playing Michigan State, so they're just going to look elsewhere...

So ..... we should have played L'ville at T-town? I don't see the difference in a home and home and a neutral site game.

What's the the blind faith support in these games from everyone? Am I the only fan that's sick of this stuff? I want to see the other beautiful campuses in this nation with my tide brothers! I don't care about seeing rickety old stadiums in Florida or NFL venues. Take me to Eugene, Ann Arbor, Tempe South Bend. This is all about the $$$$ and it's disgusting.

Good teams match up on neutral fields during the Bowl Season too. But you don't hear anyone being a gripe about that. In short, who cares. Whiners are gonna whine.

CrimsonblakeII said:

What's the the blind faith support in these games from everyone? Am I the only fan that's sick of this stuff? I want to see the other beautiful campuses in this nation with my tide brothers! I don't care about seeing rickety old stadiums in Florida or NFL venues. Take me to Eugene, Ann Arbor, Tempe South Bend. This is all about the $$$$ and it's disgusting.

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It's not blind faith, it is trusting or giving the benefit of the doubt to the coach who has brought your program back from the abyss to one of the great runs in college football history, that he will exercise the same wisdom in running all aspects of the program. That is wisdom and appreciation, not blind faith. Blind faith would be trusting someone like you who I do not know and whose one post in this thread reveals a remarkable lack of respect for other fans and more importantly for the leader of the program. All because of your own selfishness - "I want to travel to...". Your primary interest is not the program, it's yourself. Yeah, I think I'll go with Nick, even if he is wrong. For the record, IMO, he's not.

RTR91 said:

Some national media members aren't happy about this.

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Begrudgingly, I have to admit that they have a point. I favor the one and dones for financial reasons but h/h's do force you to compete in a more difficult environment.

BamaInBham said:

It's not blind faith, it is trusting or giving the benefit of the doubt to the coach who has brought your program back from the abyss to one of the great runs in college football history, that he will exercise the same wisdom in running all aspects of the program. That is wisdom and appreciation, not blind faith. Blind faith would be trusting someone like you who I do not know and whose one post in this thread reveals a remarkable lack of respect for other fans and more importantly for the leader of the program. All because of your own selfishness - "I want to travel to...". Your primary interest is not the program, it's yourself. Yeah, I think I'll go with Nick, even if he is wrong. For the record, IMO, he's not.

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You call him selfish and another poster calls him a whiner, yet he is being disrespectful of other fans?

I'd rather see home and home as well. I'm sorry that goes against Saban's view, I just find going into someone else's stadium with them coming here more intriguing than a game at Jerry World.

I guess everyone who loves the neutral games because Saban wants them is in agreement with him that we should be playing nine conference games.


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Loam said:

Good teams match up on neutral fields during the Bowl Season too. But you don't hear anyone being a gripe about that. In short, who cares. Whiners are gonna whine.

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I agree I like the neutral site games. Playing in Dallas certainly has boosted us in recruiting, it seems we have pulled at least one kid from Texas the last three or four years in a row. We could not really say that a few years ago. It does not really matter what we do some of the media has always and will continue to whine about us.

It doesn't matter who we play on the road, the idiots in the media will ALWAYS find a reason to gig us about something no matter what. Lets say we moved to 9 SEC games, we could play USC, FSU, and Oregon ALL ON THE ROAD and the media will say we waited this long so they could get rid of Barkley, Winston and Mariota.

Everyone that is not a fan hates us, so there is no sense in trying to make these fools happy because they will always find a reason to gripe about us for some reason to try and keep us out of the playoffs.

Crimson1967 said:

I'd rather see home and home as well. I'm sorry that goes against Saban's view, I just find going into someone else's stadium with them coming here more intriguing than a game at Jerry World.

I guess everyone who loves the neutral games because Saban wants them is in agreement with him that we should be playing nine conference games.

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Nope, I don't want the nine conference games and I couldn't care less about Alabama not playing home and homes. I also am not an entertainment value Alabama fan, I want Alabama to have success, my interests do not lie with what entertains me the most, I want less intrigue not more. Intrigue? The 2013 Auburn game was intriguing, I liked the 2012 one a lot better, you know the one were the stadium wasn't even full.

Having said that, I don't actually think two neutral site games are any easier than a home/home overall. You leave your place, you travel, you play in unfamiliar settings. It just removes a few variables (the other team doesn't have advantages) and makes it easier for the better team to win. I always thought though that the money and the exposure were the main advantages. You go and play at say Oklahoma or something, not like a lot of those Oklahoma kids are going to come play for you. You go and play at Orlando, Dallas, or Atlanta and you have a legitimate chance of it impacting recruiting. The game is a showcase game, it helps make Alabama better, but anyone who thinks they are easy games is lying or stupid.

Crimson1967 said:

You call him selfish and another poster calls him a whiner, yet he is being disrespectful of other fans?

I'd rather see home and home as well. I'm sorry that goes against Saban's view, I just find going into someone else's stadium with them coming here more intriguing than a game at Jerry World.

I guess everyone who loves the neutral games because Saban wants them is in agreement with him that we should be playing nine conference games.


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I think the 3 year policy of H/H/N should have been left in place. I also believe that if you are going to be a conference then you should play each other. Eight games and the following chart ain't making it. IMO it is an asinine embarrassing joke.

ALA2262 said:

I think the 3 year policy of H/H/N should have been left in place. I also believe that if you are going to be a conference then you should play each other. Eight games and the following chart ain't making it. IMO it is an asinine embarrassing joke.

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I don't think there was ever a policy of H/H/N in big non-conference games. We've only played Penn State H/H since Coach Saban arrived. All other games have been the big neutral site opener to start the year.

Frankly, looking back, I believe Oklahoma in 2002/2003 was the last big non-conference home and home that we did prior to Penn State in 2010/2011.

I remember that, starting in 2000 with UCLA, we were to have 8 straight years of big home and home non-conference games. They were to be UCLA in 2000/2001, Oklahoma in 2002/2003, Penn State in 2004/2005, and Notre Dame in 2006/2007. But then probation happened and Mike Shula happened, and the Penn State series got pushed back to 2010/2011 and the Notre Dame series was canceled.

TideEngineer08 said:

I don't think there was ever a policy of H/H/N in big non-conference games. We've only played Penn State H/H since Coach Saban arrived. All other games have been the big neutral site opener to start the year.

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Yes there was. PSU was scheduled for 2010-2011 and 2012 was left open for a NS game. GT was scheduled for 2013-2014 and 2015 was left open for a NS game. Michigan State was scheduled for 2016-2017 and 2018 was left open for a NS game. GT was postponed to 2019-2020 and 2021 was left open for a NS game. All of that since PSU has been thrown out like a baby with the bath water.

ALA2262 said:

Yes there was. GT was scheduled for 2013-2014 and 2015 was left open for a NS game. Michigan State was scheduled for 2016-2017 and 2018 was left open for a NS game. GT was postponed to 2019-2020 and 2021 was left open for a NS game. All of that has been thrown out like a baby with the bath water.

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Oh yes, you're right.

ALA2262 said:

I think the 3 year policy of H/H/N should have been left in place. I also believe that if you are going to be a conference then you should play each other. Eight games and the following chart ain't making it. IMO it is an asinine embarrassing joke.

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How on earth do we have to go 9 YRS before getting to play South Carolina in the rotation??(last time we played them was 5 yrs ago)

This NS game every year thingy started with GT asking out of the 2013-2014 series at about the same time that the Atlanta Sports Council negotiated a tentative agreement with USC to play in either the 2013 or the 2014 game. Pete Carroll's preferred opponent was Bama. Not knowing which year that USC would choose, the ASC began negotiations with Bama for both years. All of that went out the window when Carroll left and Bama wound up being contracted for both years. Apparently, at that point, CNS decided to make the NS game an annual affair.