Will Alabama keep Oklahoma State, Ohio State games? What Greg Byrne said

Alabama athletics director Greg Byrne knows the predicament Alabama football faces in its future non-conference schedules.

With the addition of Georgia State as the Crimson Tide’s 2028 season opener, Alabama currently has four non-conference games lined up with three spots available. Three games are scheduled as home games — Georgia State, Ohio State and UT Martin — and one is scheduled as a road game: Oklahoma State.

One 2028 non-conference game must be moved. And, in an interview with The Tuscaloosa News Monday, March 2, Byrne said the status of the Alabama-Oklahoma State series is “to be determined.”

“We’re working on that,” Byrne said. “We’re trying to watch what happens with some other moving parts with some other games and put it all together.”

But for Byrne and Alabama, non-conference scheduling is part of a much bigger discussion, one the college football-watching public has latched onto.

Yes, Byrne said, it’s good for Alabama to play non-conference games against teams like Ohio State and Oklahoma State. It’s good for the sport. It’s good for the Crimson Tide brand. It’s good for Alabama players, who choose the Crimson Tide to play in high-profile games.

But there’s a balance.

“We have been talking about strength of schedule and impact and what we continue to see,” Byrne said. “This College Football Playoff often put teams in buckets: one-loss bucket, two-loss bucket, three-loss bucket. And not all schedules over the course of the season are equal.”

Take Texas: 9-3 on paper with losses to Florida, Ohio State and Georgia. The Longhorns struggled in wins, sure, but nine wins with the ninth-hardest schedule in the sport, per ESPN, “is pretty darn good in today’s world,” Byrne said. Alabama had the second-hardest schedule in the same metric.

“I want to continue to see that being recognized by the CFP because, at the end of the day, we want to play these games, but we also want to make the playoff,” Byrne said.

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In a February interview, Ohio State athletics director Ross Bjork told the Columbus Dispatch he’s “received no incoming phone calls about that game from my friend in Tuscaloosa” and expects it to be played.

Alabama has future non-conference games scheduled against teams such as Notre Dame, Georgia Tech, Minnesota and Virginia Tech along with Ohio State and Oklahoma State.

Byrne said Alabama “has already made some adjustments, but we’re going to have to continue to make some others.”

All Byrne is definitive about is abiding by the policy the SEC put in place.

“I see us adhering to the policy of playing nine SEC games and one Power 4 non-conference game,” Byrne said. “What that looks like is still being worked on.”

Colin Gay covers Alabama football for The Tuscaloosa News, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at cgay@gannett.com or follow him @_ColinGay on X, formerly known as Twitter. 

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: What Greg Byrne said about Alabama football future non-conference schedule