Alabama AD Greg Byrne: 'Our goal is to play this fall'

Alabama is set to start its fall camp Monday as it prepares for the SEC’s plan to begin a 10-game, conference-only season on Sept. 26. According to Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne, that plan is still intact — at least for the time being.

Byrne spoke to the media through a Zoom call Thursday, providing an update on Alabama’s plans moving forward. Earlier this week, college football saw the Big Ten and Pac-12 conferences cancel their fall football seasons in hopes to play in the spring. Byrne said the SEC has had limited discussions about a potential spring season but that its focus is on moving forward with a plan to play this fall.

“Our goal is to play this fall right now,” Byrne said. “We’ve adjusted a lot since March, and we will continue to evolve and adjust as is necessary.”

As of now, the SEC is one of three Power 5 conferences planning on playing this fall, joining the ACC and Big 12. Byrne was asked how closely he follows other conferences’ decisions and whether it would be important for the majority of the Power 5 conferences to hold their ground on a fall season.

“Yes, we are watching what other conferences are doing and trying to make sure we’re balancing that with staying focused on the Southeastern Conference, the University of Alabama, our student-athletes, our coaches and staff and also our fans,” Byrne said. “... We have to make the best decisions we can as things continue to progress.”

With a limited number of programs participating in the fall season, there’s also the question of how a national championship should be decided. Byrne said he has addressed the matter with Alabama head coach Nick Saban, stating there have been some “very-early discussions.” However, he shied away from making a definitive stance on how Alabama believes a title should be determined, calling the situation fluid.

Byrne said he was very proud of what Alabama has handled safety precautions so far, commending the university for how it has approached testing, social distancing and contact tracing.

“If you do and follow the CDC guidelines from a contact-tracing standpoint, I think you have an opportunity to move forward to try and play whatever sport it is in the fall,” Byrne said. “That’s what we’ve been doing as a department, and that’s what we’re going to continue to do… If the fall sports season is called off at some point, then obviously we’ll follow those guidelines. I think we’ve heard clearly from our student-athletes that the great majority of them want an opportunity to try to play.”

Byrne also made it a point to discredit beliefs that the intention to play a fall season was based primarily on financial reasoning, stating the pandemic would cause a monetary hit regardless. He said Alabama is waiting to receive its final dates for the coming season before unveiling its ticketing plan to the public, emphasizing that capacity inside Bryant-Denny Stadium would be “significantly reduced.”

“Whether we play or we don’t play, there are significant financial challenges that athletic departments all across the country are going to have, including what we’re going to have to address here at Alabama,” Byrne said. “And we’ve already taken steps. As soon as everything got shut down last spring, we instantly froze budgets. We’ve tried to be very discrete as much as possible from a spending standpoint. And we have other plans that we have been developing over the past several months that we will talk about with more detail once we know what we are working with.”

Last month, the SEC announced it was moving to a 10-game, conference-only schedule. The conference revealed the two new conference opponents for each of its teams last week but has yet to announce its complete SEC schedule. Byrne said he assumes dates for the schedule will be released in the next week or sooner.

Alabama will be adding a road trip to Missouri and a home game against Kentucky to its conference slate, which already consisted of home games against Georgia, Mississippi State, Texas A&M and Auburn as well as road games against Ole Miss, Arkansas, Tennessee and LSU.

Depending on how the newly-constructed schedule plays out, it could have implications on several rivalries across the conference. Alabama has played Auburn in the Iron Bowl on the last game of the regular season for the past 16 years. The last time the Tide didn’t play the Tigers as its final regular-season game was in 2003 when it used a trip to Hawaii to compensate for a bowl ban.

“I think there’s something to be said of having that towards the end of the year,” Byrne said. “Obviously the Iron Bowl is something that has been an important part (of our schedule). Whether that’s the last week, the second to last week, the third to last week, I don’t know. Whenever they tell us to play it, we’re going to go play it. But I do think there’s something to be said about the meeting of it being towards the end of the year.”