Alabama football: 4 future opponents the Tide should schedule

Penn State

The Nittany Lions are considered by many to be one of the Crimson Tide’s most historic opponents in the history of non-conference football, with a total of 15 meetings, probably the most historic game in the series was the 1979 Sugar Bowl, which served as the national championship game for the 1978 season.

Of course, Alabama and Penn State played each other in a home-and-home series way back in the early 2010s, with the second game taking place the same season Alabama controversially made it over Oklahoma State for the BCS National Championship Game.

But we can’t see any reason on why a series can’t be played again, just imagine the possibility of the game at Beaver Stadium taking place at night!

Iowa

This one is more tricky to figure out, as the Hawkeyes have never played a non-conference Power 5 team not named Iowa State ever since the Big Ten increased its number of conference games from 8 to 9, but, anyone can dream, right? The Hawkeyes and Tide have never played on the gridiron but there was a high possibility the two sides could have met on the 2015-16 College Football Playoff had Iowa beaten Michigan State in that season’s Big Ten Championship Game.

Opponents like Iowa and Iowa State are most likely to be contested as bowl opponents, but if the Tide somehow manages to schedule the Hawkeyes, the game at Kinnick Stadium would be extremely special due to the Children’s Hospital Wave.

UCF

Despite the Knights’ claimed national championship in the 2017 season being old news, this would be an intriguing matchup due to UCF’s coach being Gus Malzahn, who most Tide fans remember as one of Auburn’s head coaches, albeit UCF’s “national championship” would help finally settle the debate on who deserved the title more that season, plus, imagine the Crimson Tide program enjoying the city of Orlando should a series actually be scheduled.