Alabama football continues to diminish ‘cupcake schedule’ narrative

Alabama football scheduled yet another home-and-home with a Power Five opponent, showing that the ‘cupcake schedule’ narrative is stale.

For a program that has earned plenty of respect over the years with national title after national title, the Crimson Tide have gotten plenty of flak for their non-conference scheduling.

It’s a fair point, though, because Alabama has backed out of home-and-homes before and the national perception in recent years is that the Tide won’t play any major Power Five teams on the road. It’s eight neutral site games, home games or nothing at all. That has riled the masses.

Sure, Alabama has been college football’s biggest powerhouse under Nick Saban, but the fact that it gets to skate by in non-conference play is ludicrous.

Not anymore.

On Thursday, the Crimson Tide agreed to a future home-and-home series with Arizona, making it eight future home-and-homes with Power Five foes and one against a blue blood independent (Notre Dame).

No, Arizona isn’t a Pac-12 power, but no one knows just how good either of these two programs will be in 2032-33. There’s a good chance Alabama will have spent enough money to hire an elite coach to replacer Saban, but the Wildcats are in a weird place where it seems like mediocrity is all they know. They’ve had some good seasons, but not consistently.

All of that could change in 12-13 years.

This isn’t just about scheduling Arizona, but rather the fact that Alabama seems poised to crush the ‘cupcake non-conference schedule’ narrative.

We all know the SEC is arguably the most competitive conference in the country, but now that Alabama has scheduled the likes of Texas, Wisconsin, Florida State, Notre Dame and Oklahoma over the next 15 years to home-and-homes, no undefeated non-conference season will come with an asterisk.

Alabama is doing the right thing and giving fans what they want to see: more Power Five matchups in non-conference play.