Alabama Football: Early Takeaways from Tide's 2015 Schedule

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama’s 2015 SEC schedule was released Thursday, along with the rest of the league’s 2015 slate, on the SEC Network.

We already knew the Crimson Tide would open the season against Wisconsin at AT&T Stadium in Dallas. Alabama also had a game against ULM scheduled. Its final two nonconference games were announced on Tuesday.

Alabama also now knows when it will face whom in conference play. Here is the full schedule.

Date	Opponent
September 5	vs. Wisconsin
September 12	vs. Middle Tennessee State
September 19	vs. Ole Miss
September 26	vs. UL-Monroe
October 3	at Georgia
October 10	vs. Arkansas
October 17	at Texas A&M
October 24	vs. Tennessee
October 31	BYE
November 7	vs. LSU
November 14	at Mississippi State
November 21	vs. Charleston Southern
November 28	at Auburn

*Highlighted games represent games that were just announced Tuesday.

A few takeaways follow below.

Nonconference slate finalized

Previously unannounced were games against Middle Tennessee State and Charleston Southern that rounded out Alabama's 2015 schedule.

The Crimson Tide waited until the 11th hour to get those games.

“Right now we'd take anybody,” Alabama athletics director Bill Battle joked over the summer in an interview with CBSSports.com's Jeremy Fowler.

It was expected that one game would be against an FCS school, as Alabama traditionally does before the Iron Bowl. Alabama typically plays two other group-of-five FBS schools in addition to a marquee opener.

Fans hoping for that to change were disappointed. Alabama will have three of its seven home games yet again against group-of-five or FCS opponents. 

Back between the hedges

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Alabama is going back to Georgia for the first time since a 41-30 win in 2008 that wasn’t nearly as close as the final score indicated.

That was the “Blackout Game,” as it has come to be called. Georgia fans wore all black for the top-10 matchup in which Alabama jumped out to a 31-0 halftime lead. It was one of the first major victories under coach Nick Saban that helped springboard the Crimson Tide into its dynasty.

The 2015 game looks like it will feature several new faces on offense for both teams.

Quarterbacks Hutson Mason and Blake Sims are both fifth-year starters who won’t be playing. Running backs T.J. Yeldon and Todd Gurley are both expected to go pro after this season, regardless of what happens with Gurley the rest of the year.

It will be the first time these two teams have met, period, since a wild 2012 SEC Championship game. Unless they see each other in Atlanta again, the teams won’t face each other again until 2021.

Brutal road schedule

In addition to the trip to Athens, Alabama gets Mississippi State, Auburn and Texas A&M on the road. In the past, trips to Starkville, Miss., have been written off, but the Bulldogs’ resurgence makes this a massive game.

When Alabama went to College Station last year, it produced a 49-42 shootout for the ages. And no one needs to be reminded about the Crimson Tide’s last trip to the plains.

This year, Alabama’s toughest road game was probably Ole Miss—its only loss so far—and otherwise caught down LSU and Tennessee teams away from Bryant-Denny Stadium.

In 2015, though, it won’t be such a cakewalk.

Toughest slate since 2010?

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Alabama has benefited from the SEC’s rotational schedule the last few years in different ways but not 2015.

This season the Crimson Tide got a down Florida team, had Kentucky the year before, went to Missouri in 2012 to face a Tiger team still adjusting to the SEC and Vandy and another bad Florida team in 2011.

In 2010, Alabama had to go to Columbia, S.C., where it was upset by the Gamecocks. That same kind of trap game could be looming in 2015.

The Bulldogs haven’t been an SEC pushover in a while and don’t figure to take too much of a step back next season, either.

That, combined with that tough road schedule, could make this Alabama’s toughest schedule since 2010, when the Crimson Tide finished their SEC schedule 5-3.