Alabama Schedules Significant Home-and-Home Series With Arizona

The Alabama Crimson Tide and the Arizona Wildcats have to come to an agreement to play a pair of on-campus games in 2032 and 2033. It will be the first ever meeting between these two schools. Alabama AD Greg Byrne served the same role at the University of Arizona before moving to Tuscaloosa. However, none of that is the most interesting aspect of this agreement.

If you have not been paying attention, Alabama has been shaking things up in their scheduling. One-off neutral site games are going away and home-and-home series are filling up future calendars. The Crimson Tide has one last neutral game in 2021 (vs Miami-FL in Atlanta) before the out-of-conference on-campus bonanzas with other Power 5 teams take over. The intriguing point of this newest foe is that the series will be in the same seasons as the Tide’s series with Oklahoma, only with home and away reversed. Alabama also plays at FSU and home versus Wisconsin in 2025, followed by a trip to West Virginia and a home date with the Seminoles in 2026.

The significance of these games is that Alabama is moving towards a more competitive OOC schedule. It is a result of one of two things: fans loudly expressed to Byrne and Coach Nick Saban their dislike for cupcake games and they listened; or college football is inching closer to an all Power 5 division. Many of the recent NCAA rulings have already hinted at the latter being true but it’s probably a little of both.

FUTURE OOC POWER 5 SCHEDULES

2021: vs Miami-FL in Atlanta

2022: at Texas

2023: vs Texas

2024: at Wisconsin

2025: at Florida State, vs Wisconsin

2026: at West Virginia, vs Florida State

2027: vs West Virginia

2028: at Notre Dame

2029: vs Notre Dame

2030: at Georgia Tech

2031: vs Georgia Tech

2032: at Oklahoma, vs Arizona

2033: vs Oklahoma, at Arizona

2034: at Virginia Tech

2035: vs Virginia Tech