The Crimson Tide's Tampa Trip Signals Shift in Alabama's Scheduling

Alabama football heads to Tampa to take on South Florida, securing Nick Saban's desire to recruit nationally and shore up the future schedules with challenging opponents.

The Alabama Crimson Tide hits the road for Tampa, Fla., for the second edition of Nick Saban's new scheduling philosophy, which goes far beyond simply just trying to secure another win during the 2023 college football season. Why many may wonder why Alabama would agree to make the trip and visit the South Florida Bulls in Raymond James Stadium on Saturday, there are actually numerous potential benefits at play for the program.

First, the obvious, Alabama can erase the bitter taste of last weekend's home defeat to the Texas Longhorns. 

Second, from a preparation standpoint the Bulls' offensive philosophy directly mirrors that of the Tennessee Volunteers, due to first-year head coach Alex Goulash coordinating the Vols offense in 2021-22.

But Alabama didn't know it would be dealing with either circumstance when it signed to play the two-for-one home-and-home series (South Florida will visit Bryant-Denny Stadium both next season and in 2026) four years ago. That leads to the third, and perhaps biggest plus to the trip, so the Crimson Tide brand can continue to establish its dominance by winning a high-profile game away from the friendly confines of Bryant-Denny Stadium. 

How does that serve Alabama and its football program? The Crimson Tide's consistent dominance in road non-conference games has arguably been the secret sauce to the campus's out-of-state enrollment explosion, and has flung doors wide open for Nick Saban to recruit whomever he pleases, regardless of location.

"I think anytime you play on the road and you play a quality opponent which I think these guys have made tremendous improvement in their team in the quality of their players and all that. It's a game that’s going to be on TV. It's a good market for our fan base in Central Florida. I think it’s all good," said Saban on Wednesday. "But I think it’s only good if you play good. Image is something you’ve got to work to really have in terms of what I talked about before in terms of standard, how you play and the thing you do so that pride in performance is going to be important no matter where we play."

Traditionally, the Crimson Tide has played well in these games, winning by an average of nearly 25 points (24.92). The standard has been easy to behold as Alabama has dismantled some of the biggest brands like Michigan, Southern Cal, Penn State and Florida State in some of the biggest venues like the old Georgia Dome, Mercedes Benz Stadium, AT&T Stadium or even on their opponent’s own home field.

Year	Opponent	Location	Result
2008	Clemson	Atlanta, Ga. - Georgia Dome	W 34-10
2009	Virginia Tech	Atlanta, Ga. - Georgia Dome	W 34-24
2010	Duke	Durham, N.C. - Wallace Wade Stadium	W 62-13
2011	Penn State	State College, Pa. - Beaver Stadium	W 27-11
2012	Michigan	Dallas, Texas - Cowboys Stadium	W 41-14
2013	Virginia Tech	Atlanta, Ga. - Georgia Dome	W 35-10
2014	West Virginia	Atlanta, Ga. - Georgia Dome	W 33-23
2015	Wisconsin	Dallas, Texas - Cowboys Stadium	W 35-17
2016	Southern Cal	Dallas, Texas - Cowboys Stadium	W 52-6
2017	Florida State	Atlanta, Ga. - Mercedes-Benz Stadium	W 24-7
2018	Louisville	Orlando, Fla. - Camping World Stadium	W 51-14
2019	Duke	Atlanta, Ga. - Mercedes-Benz Stadium	W 42-3
2020	COVID-19- ALL SEC	COVID-19- ALL SEC	COVID-19-ALL SEC
2021	Miami	Atlanta, Ga. - Mercedes-Benz Stadium	W 44-13
2022	Texas	Austin, Texas - Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium	W 20-19
2023	South Florida	Tampa, Fla. - Raymond James Stadium	UNKNOWN
2024	Wisconsin	Madison, Wis - Camp Randall Stadium	UNKOWN
2025	Florida State	Tallahassee, Fla. - Doak S. Campbell Stadium	UNKOWN
2026	West Virginia	Morgantown, W.Va. - Mountaineer Field	UNKNOWN
2027	Ohio State	Columbus, Ohio - Ohio Stadium	UNKNOWN
2028	Oklahoma State	Stillwater, Ok - Boone Pickens Stadium	UNKNOWN
2029	Notre Dame	South Bend, Ind. - Notre Dame Stadium	UNKNOWN
2030	Georgia Tech	Atlanta, Ga. - Bobby Dodd Stadium	UNKNOWN
2031	Boston College	Chestnut Hill, Mass. - Alumni Stadium	UNKNOWN
2032	Minnesota	Minneapolis, Minn. - Huntington Bank Stadium	UNKNOWN
2033	Arionza	Tuscon, Ariz. - Arizona Stadium	UNKNOWN
2034	Virginia Tech	Blacksburg, Va. - Lane Stadium	UNKNOWN

Saban routinely points to the Crimson Tide's first neutral-site clash with the Clemson Tigers in 2008 as the spark that ignited his historic run at Alabama. It entered the game as an underdog but asserted itself physically and emerged with a 24-point victory. 

Alabama went on to a 12-2 season, finishing No. 6 in the final AP Top 25, but the nation was put on notice that the Crimson Tide was rising. One month later Saban put the finishing touches on a No. 3-ranked recruiting class, his second top-five class in consecutive years, signaling the birth of a monster that has gone on to claim six national championships and eight SEC championships.

Saban's first two recruiting classes were made up largely out of the best talent the state of Alabama had to offer as 31 of his first 59 enrollees (52 percent) hailed from the Yellowhammer State. 

After the success in 2008 the Crimson Tide enjoyed Saban's recruiting philosophy and saw a significant shift to a more national focus. Alabama secured Florida's top-ranked player, Trent Richardson, in 2009, Virginia's top-ranked player, Phillip Sims, in 2010 and the trend grew from there.

The Class of 2011 was Saban's first recruiting national championship according to 247Sports, in his Alabama tenure. The Crimson Tide secured 5-star tackle Cyrus Kouandjio out of Maryland, 5-star safety Ha-Ha Clinton Dix out of Florida, and 5-star defensive lineman Jesse Williams out of Arizona Western College by way of Australia. 

Of the 77 enrollees from the 2009 through 2011 class just 25 were from Alabama, dropping the in-state additions to just 32 percent of the athletes.

Look through the Crimson Tide recruiting classes now and you'll see stars from all over the country and even the world thanks to the global brand that Saban and his dynasty have established. 

From Jonathan Allen in Virginia, Derrick Henry in Florida, Najee Harris and Bryce Young in California, Minkah Fitzpatrick in New Jersey, to Tua Tagovailoa in Hawaii the Crimson Tide has found its way into living rooms from coast-to-coast.

This weekend's contest against South Florida marks another sizable shift in Saban's scheduling philosophy. The Crimson Tide is playing its second non-conference road game in two years and will embark on a true road trip for each of the next 11 years. 

The shift serves two purposes for Alabama. On the surface the Crimson Tide is ensured quality home games on the return legs of the home-and-home series, as seen in last week's matchup with the Texas Longhorns. However, the much more likely answer involves the life-blood of the dynasty, recruiting.

"Probably the Clemson game that we had in Atlanta probably did as much to sort of ignite the program in a way. But then after you do that for a while and you start having success, and fans are going to playoff games and bowl games and different things, they don't have the same significance," said Saban on his shift away from neutral site games. "Then to have more quality home games for the fans to see becomes a little bit more I think important. I think that's kind of in a nutshell is sort of why we transitioned back to this. Not to say that if we had an opportunity to play a game somewhere in the future we would, but I think that changes also with conference realignment, and what can happen in the future. So there's a lot of factors that go into it." 

This weekend's game will be held in Raymond James Stadium, the full-time home of the Tamp Bay Buccaneers, but just across the bay lies high school football powerhouse IMG Academy. 

The Ascenders program has been good to Alabama over the years, providing stars like Evan Neal, Trey Sanders, Dylan Moses, and even current strength and conditioning coach David Ballou. 

IMG's class of 2024 cornerback Ellis Robinson IV is currently committed to Georgia, but the Crimson Tide will continue to pursue his services until he signs his letter of intent in December. Subsequently, one of the biggest uncommitted offensive lineman in the 2024 class, IMG's Jordan Seaton, is high on the Alabama priority list after he officially visited Tuscaloosa in June.

The Crimson Tide already has a commitment from IMG's class of 2025 running back, Anthony "Turbo" Rogers, but would love to make inroads with linebacker Nathaniel Owusu-Boateng and safety Alex Graham. 

The two-for-one arrangement with South Florida is perfect for the Crimson Tide as Alabama secures two quality home games on its schedule ahead, but surely Saban's motivation with these trips is to leave a strong impression on the communities in recruiting hot-beds around the nation.

"You get to go to some of these outstanding places, to where you're showing off the Crimson Tide fanbase. We know there are Crimson Tide fans that are going to be there and Alabama, even coming up this week, I expect to have a really good crowd advantage," said Crimson Tide Sports Network's Roger Hoover on "The Joe Gaither Show on BamaCentral".

"It's 65,000 seats, it's not the largest stadium in the world. USF does have a good fan-base. It's a large school at the University of South Florida. We know the Crimson Tide fans will travel well. We know they've had this trip circled for a long, long time. Maybe get some golf in, maybe get some time at the beach around the football game. It's certainly part of the fun for the Crimson Tide. That's why it's great to see so many of these home-and-home matchups scheduled in the future because there's going to be some really [terrific] destinations to continue to follow the Crimson Tide and cheer them on far away from Tuscaloosa."

See Also

Alabama Football Commit Julian Sayin on The Joe Gaither Show: Episode 36, July 10, 2023