With the Pac-12 moving to a conference-only schedule, the USC Trojans will not be playing the Alabama Crimson Tide at AT&T Stadium on September 5. The last time the two teams met, USC was blown out of the water by a score of 52-6. The game eventually led to Sam Darnold taking over the reins of the team. Jalen Hurts’ Alabama career began in that game.
To talk about this huge change to the 2020 schedule, Trojans Wire reached out to Clint Lamb, editor of Roll Tide Wire, one of our college wire partner sites under the USA TODAY banner.
1. How is the cancellation of the USC game being received in Alabama?
A lot of Alabama fans were excited about the opportunity to play what is expected to be a really good USC team. With the tradition and current talent levels of both programs, the game was seen as one of the best opening-week matchups in college football, and there are a lot of fans who were disappointed with the Pac-12 decision.
That especially holds true if the rest of the schedule remains intact and Alabama replaces the Trojans with TCU. That game still provides some level of excitement for fans, but it’s not USC.
2. USC fans feel like they dodged a bullet. I imagine Bama fans do not feel like that, so what are they feeling?
There are a lot of Alabama fans who are anxious to see where the defense is at after the struggles last season. The return of key players such as Dylan Moses and LaBryan Ray helps, but most of the exterior pass rush production is gone from last season (Anfernee Jennings and Terrell Lewis) and the secondary is replacing four out of five starters.
Going against a formidable USC offense, including quarterback Kedon Slovis and a talented group of receivers, was going to be an excellent opportunity to see where Pete Golding’s defense was at heading into Year 2 of being the full-time defensive coordinator. It’s disappointed that we won’t get to see that happen.
3. How will the loss of this game affect the Tide financially, if at all?
That’s a great question. As of right now, it’s tough to know how losing the USC game will financially impact Alabama, especially considering that Greg Sankey and the other SEC decision-makers are trying to replace it with another respected, Power Five opponent. I’m sure there will be financially implications here, but like I said, it’s hard to know exactly what those will be without knowing where the Tide goes from here.
4. How badly do you think conference-only scheduling will have an impact on the way we process the postseason?
With where the SEC, Big 12 and ACC are at currently, it’s hard to tell if the conference-only scheduling will be consistent across the board. If it isn’t, that will make things extremely interesting because comparisons could only be made between three of the five Power Five conferences. How does that affect things?
For example, what if there’s an undefeated SEC and ACC team, but the Big 12 champion has one loss. Then you have undefeated Pac-12 and Big Ten champs, but they’ve each only gone 11-0 (assuming conference championships are played) instead of 12-1 like the Big 12 champion. Do you punish that Big 12 champion for playing two more games?
With all that being said, I still believe we end up at a 10-game schedule across the board, and it could very well be a conference-only schedule like you mention. So, what does that look like?
Well, it will be extremely difficult for the College Football Playoff committee to make comparisons between conferences. I think it completely wipes out the chance of one conference, such as the SEC, from getting two teams into a four-team Playoff. Prior beliefs on conference strength from past seasons will almost certainly come into play, as unfortunate as that is to say.
5. Let’s be honest: How excited were Bama fans to face this team again after they destroyed their morale and soul the last time?
I do believe there was a lot of confidence among the Alabama fan base after the result from 2016, but at the same time, there’s no denying that USC would’ve been much better prepared this time around. What makes things interesting is the similarity between the quarterback battles going on in both seasons.
The Tide was looking to replace national championship winner Jake Coker in 2016 with either Blake Barnett, Cooper Bateman or Jalen Hurts, and they ultimately settled in on the talented true freshman in Hurts. This year could provide a similar result, although I doubt it.
Mac Jones at least has multiple starts under his belt, including a road game against Auburn in the Iron Bowl and a bowl game victory against Michigan. With the pandemic limiting the preparation time table, it’s hard to imagine a scenario where the freshman phenom like Bryce Young is named the starter out of the gate.
As confident as Alabama fans might’ve been heading into this game, there is still a ton of respect to be had for Clay Helton’s program. And one key difference between the 2016 squad and the group in 2020 would’ve been the expected quarterback play. Sam Darnold didn’t take over as the starter until after that opening game, and seeing how he performed has to make people wonder if the score would’ve been closer had he been “the guy” out the gate (Max Browne just wasn’t it).
Getting quality play with Slovis from the most important position on the field could’ve been a major difference this time around.