Lincoln Riley says Alabama’s past schedules favored championships over fans
Southern California coach Lincoln Riley is preparing for his first season as a Big Ten head coach. He, along with every other Power Four coach, is also figuring out how to lead his team under the newly expanded College Football Playoff model. The new format will lead to more games and a season that looks more like a typical NFL regular season for teams that make the CFP.
The expanded model will also impact what nonconference games playoff-hopeful teams put on their schedules. When speaking to reporters during Big Ten Media Days on Wednesday, Riley cited Alabama’s scheduling model under Nick Saban as a successful format that his side could use in future seasons. According to Riley, Saban scheduled Alabama’s games not to make fans happy, but to win championships.
"Bama was ahead of the curve for years, I thought, on how they scheduled in the nonconference,” Riley said, according to Matt Fortuna of The Inside Zone. “They would occasionally hit the marquee nonconference game, they played two other not-very-good teams, they'd play one late so that they got essentially a little bit of a bye week right there late in the season when your season's been going on and you're a little beat up.
"They didn't schedule for the fans. They scheduled to win championships. My hope is we can do the best thing, schedule to win championships, and that includes a rivalry game for all that comes with that and all that it means. But if you get in those positions, you got to make a decision on what the priority is.”
Riley’s comment was part of a longer answer to a question regarding the future of USC’s rivalry with Notre Dame. The matchup’s continuation has come into question following the Trojans' move to the Big Ten. Next season, USC will play just one game against a non-Power Four team when it faces Utah State in September.
While the Trojans' schedule is no joke next season, Alabama’s success under Saban was not strictly built on winning nonconference games against vastly inferior opponents. During the four-team CFP era, Alabama played out-of-conference games against eight Power Four teams, including No. 3 Florida State, No. 11 Texas, No. 14 Miami, No. 20 Wisconsin and No. 20 USC. Last season, Alabama ranked second in strength of schedule according to ESPN.
Like much of the SEC, Alabama typically schedules an FCS team one week before the final game of the regular season. While that approach isn’t typically taken by every Power Four conference, the practice of facing a non-Power Four team in the middle of a campaign isn’t limited to the SEC. Last season, fellow Big Ten newcomer UCLA hosted Fresno State on Nov. 30, while Penn State faced UMass on Oct. 14. The Nittany Lions were coming off a bye week heading into that game.
Alabama isn’t shying away from facing Power Four opponents with Kalen DeBoer at the helm either. The Tide will travel to face Wisconsin on Sept. 28, DeBoer’s first road test as head coach. Alabama has also scheduled home-and-home games against Florida State, Notre Dame and Ohio State among other Power Four teams over the next seven seasons.
USC and Riley undoubtedly have some tough scheduling challenges to navigate as the Trojans settle into the Big Ten. An out-of-conference rivalry forces USC to make some difficult decisions about keeping the tradition of one of the more historic games in college football between the Trojans and the Fighting Irish. However, if USC seeks the Saban model, marquee nonconference matchups will likely still populate the Trojans' future schedules, just as they will for the Crimson Tide in the coming seasons.