Alabama’s biggest non-conference game this year is Louisville, but there’s no way the Crimson Tide could have known that the Cardinals would be trying to replace a Heisman-winning quarterback in Lamar Jackson back when they scheduled the game.
Alabama has series against Texas and Notre Dame coming in the future, and more spots to fill in other years’ non-conference schedules. It’ll be interesting to see what they do with those slots, but if the Tide continue to dominate the SEC, they’ll continue to get the benefit of the doubt with the CFP committee despite the protests of Brando.