Since 2007, Alabama Has Faced a Bunch of Opponents with 5+ Days More Rest

B1GTide said:

Look - you are looking at one data point, whether or not the team that beat Alabama had a bye week. You are ignoring a whole lot of other data points that had a whole lot more to do with those losses than the bye week. I am not going to argue with you about this, and I am not going to tell you that you are wrong because I just don't know. I am just saying that it is more complicated than you are making it out to be.

As for me being upset if this were OSU - I love Alabama football almost as much as OSU football, and my wife's entire family is from Alabama with many Alabama grads in the group. It doesn't bother them or me with respect this happening to Alabama this year. So I can say with certainty that it wouldn't bother me with OSU.

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When you add those BYE weeks by six SEC teams prior to the Bama game to how Roy Kramer treated Alabama which resulted in MAJOR PROBATION, that makes it even worse. Were Roy Kramer and Phat Phil (that Secret Witness) TWIN brothers in cahoots out to get Alabama? I say YES! Many people have stated that as a fact, Jack.

It's my understanding that other SEC schools were told to stay AWAY from the Means recruit. He was trying to bring DOWN Alabama. If he had been EQUITABLE in serving as SEC Commissioner, Alabama would also have been told to stay away from recruiting him and would not have been staring the barrel of a shotgun.

We need Equity in our treatment just like ALL SEC teams! Equity did not exist under Roy Kramer. I think he was a BIG Tennercee Fan. Yes, Mike DuBose was a HORRIBLE HEAD COACH!!!!!!! He should never have been in that position.

Now, I haven't even mentioned the NCAA which many Bama fans …….. (edited).

I have a very good friend who is a Tennessee fan and because of him, I've really tried to forgive Tennercee. However, Tennercee would be my least favorite team if it were not for Notre Dame and the Barn!

Al A Bama said:

When you add those BYE weeks by six SEC teams prior to the Bama game to how Roy Kramer treated Alabama which resulted in MAJOR PROBATION, that makes it even worse. Were Roy Kramer and Phat Phil (that Secret Witness) TWIN brothers in cahoots out to get Alabama? I say YES! Many people have stated that as a fact, Jack.

It's my understanding that other SEC schools were told to stay AWAY from the Means recruit. He was trying to bring DOWN Alabama. If he had been EQUITABLE in serving as SEC Commissioner, Alabama would also have been told to stay away from recruiting him and would not have been staring the barrel of a shotgun.

We need Equity in our treatment just like ALL SEC teams! Equity did not exist under Roy Kramer. I think he was a BIG Tennercee Fan. Yes, Mike DuBose was a HORRIBLE HEAD COACH!!!!!!! He should never have been in that position.

Now, I haven't even mentioned the NCAA which many Bama fans …….. (edited).

I have a very good friend who is a Tennessee fan and because of him, I've really tried to forgive Tennercee. However, Tennercee would be my least favorite team if it were not for Notre Dame and the Barn!

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Oh, I understand that history (my FiL spoke of it often). I understand what the SEC, Kramer and Fulmer did - conspiring with the NCAA to bring down Alabama. I wouldn't doubt that they also set you up with those bye week opponents on purpose. The logic follows given the rest. A black stain on the entire sport as far as I am concerned.

B1GTide said:

I won't speak to the craziness under Kramer, but I see a trend, not a conspiracy. The trend is simple - a lot of teams are asking for byes the weeks before they play Alabama. And, as someone said earlier in the thread, a lot of schedules are pretty much set years in advance making it harder for the schedulers to avoid these byes. If Alabama were to ask for a major shift in their schedules this might change - like asking for the LSU, TN and Auburn games to come at different times in the season - earlier in the season. That would totally shake up things and make it easier for schedulers to balance this stuff out. But those 3 games coming late in the season has become a huge tradition for all of the schools, so I don't see that happening.

BTW, Alabama also requests it bye date, and it has attempted to do so at the same time of the year every year. I suspect that the Alabama bye is timed to give your players rest as the season gets past the halfway point rather than based on the next opponent, but that opponent has been LSU for a while now. I doubt that it is because you are afraid of LSU.

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Oh it's no conspiracy at all. Teams just want the bye before us because we're the deepest, most talented program in the conference. It's understandable. But that doesn't make it random. Quite the opposite. I was confused why Edwards felt this way.

And while it's understandable that every team wants the bye before us, it's not understandable that this practice would be allowed. The SEC should have long ago set parameters on this sort of thing and enforced them.

Frankly, I would add that I've always thought teams should take the bye AFTER playing us, in order to heal up. But, I guess they figure it's not worth missing out on the extra prep time.

TideEngineer08 said:

Oh it's no conspiracy at all. Teams just want the bye before us because we're the deepest, most talented program in the conference. It's understandable. But that doesn't make it random. Quite the opposite. I was confused why Edwards felt this way.

And while it's understandable that every team wants the bye before us, it's not understandable that this practice would be allowed. The SEC should have long ago set parameters on this sort of thing and enforced them.

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Someone said earlier that the SEC set a limit at 3 games to avoid what happened in 2010 again. Is that not true?

bama579 said:

Auburn hasn't had a bye week before Alabama in the Saban era . . . Maybe further back than that.

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Auburn had a bye week in 2013.

And 2010.

And 2009.

And 2008.

And 2007.


Your move.

The "request" for an open date is just a request...really how it works is that the SEC hands them a schedule with a 5 open dates to fill 4 games. Where the holes in the conference schedule exist is probably influenced by some requests from the ADs, but it is still their decision on where they put the OOC opponents.

For example, Alabama typically has open dates before LSU and Auburn. It is our decision to leave the week before LSU open...makes more sense in my opinion: quality opponent and a nice spot to regather the team before the stretch run. Since the open date before Auburn is so late in the season, we have no choice but to schedule what will likely amount to a bottom-tier FCS team that isn't even thinking about playoffs. Its not like anybody else in FBS is going to play you in the 2nd to last week of the regular season. The SEC gets hated on for this scheduling circumstance but it happens when almost every SEC team will have at least one conference game scheduled in the first four weeks.

Really, the fix for this issue is probably adopting a Big Ten style conference schedule where everyone must play all their OOC games in the first four weeks. It would probably help fix the open date game played by ADs in the conference schedules where contenders get put at a scheduling disadvantage. Also, it would help the SEC avoid potential blowback by constantly having dead weeks in the 2nd to last weekend. At some point in this far more political playoff system the FCS weekend in late November is gonna hurt the SEC. In the BCS system, a week was just another data point where all were created equal. In a political system, I think it could hurt an SEC team making a playoff push where the circumstances gives them a dud last three weeks somehow.

selmaborntidefan said:

Auburn had a bye week in 2013.

And 2010.

And 2009.

And 2008.

And 2007.


Your move.

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Seriously, this. I read his comment and was like "what?"

B1GTide said:

Someone said earlier that the SEC set a limit at 3 games to avoid what happened in 2010 again. Is that not true?

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Yes, actually, I believe you are correct. I also think we are the only SEC team that plays 3 games vs. opponents coming off a bye. (Of course, LSU is a wash).

Here are a couple of articles about the whole 2010 mess:

1) Auburn's Chizik Likes Schedule The Way It Is (June 3, 2010)

2) Bye- Bye Bye Week Issue (October 5, 2010)

From the above article:

A new SEC rule was passed that means no team has to play more than three league opponents coming off a bye in a single season. That rule will go into effect next season.

Incidentally, those of you screaming about conspiracy theories are often the same folks screaming about the new playoff being specifically designed to prevent two SEC teams from making the game.

The funny thing, however, is nobody really wants to talk about 2007 and bye weeks I've noticed.

Our 2007 losses to LSU, MSU, and Auburn didn't have one thing to do with a bye week. Furthermore, people who continue to hold the delusion that the 2010 team somehow was this unbeatable team that got messed over conveniently forget that Arkansas had us down in the second half, 20-7, just one week after THEY beat UGA on the road. Tennessee had an off week, too, but we also killed them, 41-7.

And finally, a lot of you seem to be forgetting that Ga State moved the game back two days so we didn't have to play them Saturday and then Auburn on Friday; we had eight days from game to game and - IF ANYTHING - it hurt Auburn in the press as they had to spend that entire time answering questions about Cam Newton's potential ineligibility.

I seriously doubt the case can be made that we lost 'because' of the bye week. If you're gonna use the bye week excuse for the 2010 Iron Bowl, why didn't the bye week hurt us in the FIRST HALF when we were up 24-0? I mean, this is the same logic as Okie State trying to say they lost the Iowa State game in 2011 because they basketball coaches were killed in a plane crash. Funny, that didn't stop them from getting a 24-7 lead on Iowa State, did it?

Auburn had a bye week before the 2013 Iron Bowl; it sure didn't stop us from taking a 21-7 lead now, did it? We didn't lose that game because of a bye week or anything other than failure to execute at critical times (namely, three trips in the red zone in the final eight minutes netting ZERO points).

I share everyone else's frustration here over the whole bye week issue, but I cannot endorse what sounds more like whining and double standards, either.

One side of the mouth: "We lost because of the bye weeks!"

Other side: "We're big and bad and 19-6 when facing teams with a bye week!"

Talk about versatility of argument.....

The key thing I forgot about though is that the weird scheduling with OOC is caused by the OOC end-of-season rivalries most of the Eastern division has with ACC teams. Too much tradition with the UGA, UF, and SCAR OOC rivalry games to change it.

The SEC just has a really peculiar scheduling problem that no other conference other than the ACC has to deal with balancing. It has created some pretty problematic issues such as the schools effectively being able to call their shots on bye weeks instead of it just being some randomized generation from the conference computers.

RTR91 said:

Brad, do you still have the jpeg of your SEC helmet schedules? Would be nice to see how the schedule breaks down in regards to what every SEC opponent had the week before Alabama. For instance, Arkansas and Mississippi State are the only two SEC opponents to play a SEC game the week before Alabama.

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I think you're talking to CA, but I can help ya mah man.

selmaborntidefan, I agree that I don't buy the bye week as a huge competitive factor but the fact that Alabama is so disparately selected for in other SEC team's schedules is problematic. The more I think about ways to give the schools less control over calling their shots, the more I see why the SEC is kinda stuck with this system for scheduling. If we're gonna tell 4 schools that they can't play their biggest rival in the traditional rivalry week spot then I think it is fair for the SEC to tell 4 schools they can't play their cross division rival every year too (AU-UGA, UA-UT). Both rivalry situations are creating problems in the balancing of the conference schedules...

rgw said:

selmaborntidefan, I agree that I don't buy the bye week as a huge competitive factor but the fact that Alabama is so disparately selected for in other SEC team's schedules is problematic.

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Completely agree. 100% without reservation. The mere APPEARANCE of selective application is a problem.

rgw said:

The more I think about ways to give the schools less control over calling their shots, the more I see why the SEC is kinda stuck with this system for scheduling. If we're gonna tell 4 schools that they can't play their biggest rival in the traditional rivalry week spot then I think it is fair for the SEC to tell 4 schools they can't play their cross division rival every year too (AU-UGA, UA-UT). Both rivalry situations are creating problems in the balancing of the conference schedules...

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Yeah, the situation is unique. Perhaps the only way to do it (other than your recommended B1G solution) is to.......literally.......have the entire SEC off for a week at the same time.

The networks would NEVER go for that one. In fact, you could do the same thing week by week, the Big Ten off one week, the Pac 12, etc. There would still be football but one conference would be absent.

But like I say - the ptb will NEVER go for that with the SEC. Never.

Yeah an SEC-wide off week ain't happening. Too much money involved in the SEC providing a slate of games to the networks.


The only "solution" I see is not a real solution because it is going to grind on most of the power football programs in the conference: No more out of conference games after week 4, bye weeks are randomly assigned by the conference (impartial computer generated schedules within the parameters of the divisions and in-conference end of season rivalries), and no more cross-division locked games unless they add a 9th conference game to the schedule.

rgw said:

Yeah an SEC-wide off week ain't happening. Too much money involved in the SEC providing a slate of games to the networks.


The only "solution" I see is not a real solution because it is going to grind on most of the power football programs in the conference: No more out of conference games after week 4, bye weeks are randomly assigned by the conference (impartial computer generated schedules within the parameters of the divisions and in-conference end of season rivalries), and no more cross-division locked games unless they add a 9th conference game to the schedule.

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They could lower the limit to 2 games instead of 3, and require a school's permission to go higher in a year that presented a problem.

I'd rather just have a randomly generated schedule with strict parameters...computer minded guy myself.


Some years we get a bye before LSU, others we get it before Vandy.


Some years they get a bye before State, others they get it before Alabama.


I like the random chaos of it all

rgw said:

I'd rather just have a randomly generated schedule with strict parameters...computer minded guy myself.


Some years we get a bye before LSU, others we get it before Vandy.


Some years they get a bye before State, others they get it before Alabama.


I like the random chaos of it all

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You really want to take the chance of having a week 1 bye?

Can't happen...all four OOC must be in week 1 through 4. You could get a bye in week 1 of SEC play though...unless they also say that everyone has to play that week then byes start. But I think the preference would be for byes in week 1 of conference play over before the SECCG.

B1GTide said:

We went over this in a thread last week. It doesn't matter as much as you guys think that it does. As for the bolded - Every team would like a bye before facing any tough opponent. You are on top - here is a down side. Other teams request their bye before facing you. Solution - start losing and this will no longer be an issue.

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It was the same during the DuBose and Shula years, Bama's lowest point in its history. They were like vultures, clawing and scratching for every conceivable win, even every extra TD or ignominy they could heap on them. Bama beating their brains out goes back 100 years. Bama would have to sink into the abyss for 50 years before they would let up. Bama has a winning record against every program in the SEC home and away. Something like 24-9-3 even in Baton Rouge - one of the most incredible records in sports.

This practice is definitely an unfair advantage than needs to be addressed. Bama needs to turn up the volume - it makes a difference.