Did Alabama Play The Road Schedule From Hell? All Things CW

What took the toughest toll on Alabama this season may be the thing that keeps its College Football Playoff hopes alive until the very end.

The All Things CW notes column by Christopher Walsh will appear in five parts this week, one each day as the Alabama Crimson Tide prepares to host Austin Peay.

This is ...

Take 1

At Texas. At Arkansas. At Tennessee. At LSU. At Ole Miss. 

The Alabama Crimson Tide's road schedule this season ended up being a lot more than tough, but absolutely brutal. It's not just that all of those opposing teams have been ranked this season, and four of the five were in the AP Top 25 when the games were played, collectively the venues were beyond grueling. 

By venues we're primarily talking about the situations and fans. Empty out the stadiums and there's little difference in where the teams play other than the location of the clocks and the condition of the playing surface. 

The fans, though? They're everything. Especially when you get in these super-sized stadiums that are among the biggest in the world. 

I dare anyone to find a more challenging group of five places to play in a single season, under the circumstances this Crimson Tide team had to deal with. You'd have to start factoring in weather and other extreme measures for a regular season. 

Such a search would have to begin with trying to find two 100,000-seat facilities where fans rushed the field in postgame celebration. Both games were also played at night, which makes a big difference when you're talking about LSU and Tennessee. 

Last week, Urban Meyer noted there was only one other venue in college football that compares in terms of a challenging atmosphere, Penn State. We assume he was thinking about when Beaver Stadium calls for a whiteout. Tennessee now has the blackout at Neyland Stadium, but didn't need the promotion to create a frenzied atmosphere against the Crimson Tide. 

“So before everybody hits the panic button in Tuscaloosa, they went to Tennessee at night and it was a very close game and they lost,” Meyer said on Urban’s Take with Tim May. “They went down and went overtime at LSU, I’ve been in those stadiums, other than Penn State those are the most difficult stadiums in the country to play.”

Before anyone gets worked up with "What about so-and-so ... " statements, yes, there are other intense places when the crowd is worked up. Kyle Field at Texas A&M is one of them, and so is Jordan-Hare Stadium, especially when Alabama comes to town.

But Death Valley at night is different. So was Tennessee, which was desperate to snap a 15-game losing streak in the Third Saturday in October rivalry. 

This season, Alabama also made its first appearance at Darrell K Royal Memorial Stadium in 100 years, and played Texas for the first time since the 2009 national championship. The showdown between the storied programs attracted both College GameDay and the Big Noon Kickoff shows.  

The hairs on the arms and the backs of everyone's neck stood when the Razorback fans did the Hog Call, and Ole Miss fans are always vocal following their greatest tradition, of winning the party in case the Rebels can't come through. 

The Crimson Tide went 3-2 in those games, in the most hostile of environments, with both losses coming on the final snap. 

None of the leading contenders for the national championship faced anything like that. 

“I don’t believe any team in America would’ve won both of those games, and I know that’s a bold statement,” Meyer said “Matter of fact I’ll say this, I know none of those teams would’ve won both games, so it is what it is.”

To further put Alabama's schedule into perspective, consider what I call the Test of Three. When a college football team faces three ranked teams in succession during the regular season, it almost never gets through it intact. 

Look it up. Pick a good program, and check the last time it faced three straight ranked opponents and see how it did.

Alabama last successfully did it in 2016, and then won it's subsequent game after a bye, but ended up losing on the final play of the national championship. 

More typical is what happened in 2012. Alabama beat No. 13 Mississippi State and then won a close game at No. 5 LSU, 21-17. The third game, though, was Johnny Manziel and No. 15 Texas A&M, 29-24. 

Or in 2010. Alabama won at No. 10 Arkansas, 24-20, beat Meyer and Florida at home, 31-6, only to subsequently take the shocking loss at No. 19 South Carolina, 35-21. 

With that perspective, reconsider Alabama's schedule this season. The Crimson Tide has played a ranked opponent in five of its last six games. 

The lone unranked team it faced during that stretch was Texas A&M, back when the Aggies still had a pulse, and the Crimson Tide was without its starting quarterback, who just happened to be the reigning Heisman Trophy winner. 

The five, and their rankings at the time, were No. 20 Arkansas, No. 6 Tennessee, No. 24 Mississippi State, No. 15 LSU, and No. 11 Ole Miss. The Tigers were actually No. 10 in the initial College Football Playoff rankings, when the Volunteers were No. 1. 

So far this season, the top three teams in the CFP rankings have played five ranked opponents combined. Ohio State and Georgia have both played two, and Michigan just one so far. Of course, the Buckeyes and Wolverines have their annual rivalry game next week. 

Meanwhile, TCU has faced five, and Tennessee six. The Volunteers managed to win against three straight ranked opponents, albeit with a bye mixed in. More impressive was that it won at LSU (during the day) and then beat Alabama on successive Saturdays. 

The Vols also had a nice win at Pitt. However, they'll be finishing up at South Carolina and at Vanderbilt, which both have losing SEC records. 

Going back to the contenders, here's who the four win-and-in playoff teams have faced on the road: 

Georgia: South Carolina, Missouri, Mississippi State, at Kentucky this week.

Ohio State: Michigan State, No. 13 Penn State, Northwestern, at Maryland this week. 

Michigan: Iowa, Indiana, Rutgers and will play at No. 2 Ohio State.

TCU: Colorado, SMU, No. 19 Kansas, West Virginia, No. 18 Texas, at Baylor this week. 

Clemson's toughest road game this season was at Wake Forest. USC's was at Utah. LSU hasn't played a ranked team on the road all season. 

Should Alabama win out and some of the teams ahead of it lose, the Crimson Tide's greatest argument for possibly making the College Football Playoff will be its road schedule, especially since it didn't shy away from scheduling Texas before it was known that the Longhorns would soon be joining the Southeastern Conference. 

The tricky thing for the committee will be weighing that against some teams with a conference title from weaker leagues and schedules that didn't compare. 

See Also:

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: Alabama 30, Ole Miss 24

GameDay Edition of All Things CW: Alabama at Ole Miss

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