The SEC’s Week 7 schedule landed with a thud for Alabama fans, and the frustration is easy to understand.
Auburn and Georgia are set for a 3:30 pm ET/2:30 pm CT kickoff on ABC, ESPN, or the SEC Network, and that puts the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry directly opposite Alabama-Tennessee in the Third Saturday in October matchup. For fans in the state of Alabama, that’s a brutal overlap right out of the gate.
The night windows didn’t do any favors either. Arkansas-Vanderbilt and Kentucky-Oklahoma were the two games selected for those slots, leaving three of the SEC’s bottom-tier teams in the spotlight and a Wildcats team that had just dropped from ranked to unranked after winning at South Carolina in Week 5.
Clint Lamb summed up the reaction bluntly on X: “Putting AUB-UGA and UA-TENN at the same time is… dumb. Throwing those in with a top-25 matchup in MIZZ-OM is even dumber. It was a bad call when they revealed the time windows months ago.”
That left plenty of fans wondering whether the whole setup was really just a nudge toward multiview or a public gathering spot where both games could be watched at once. But the more obvious answer points to the money and television priorities that drive the sport.
ABC’s night slot on October 17 went to Notre Dame-BYU instead. Since that game is in Provo, ESPN controls the rights to the Big 12-hosted matchup and moved it into primetime. NBC only carries Notre Dame home games, so the Fighting Irish were available for a national window.
And when Notre Dame is available, the networks are going to use it. The Irish’s opener against Wisconsin drew more than seven million viewers in Week 1.
Still, the choice stings in a place like Alabama, where college football viewing is practically a civic habit. Birmingham was the No. 1 highest-rated college football market in the country for 11 of the last 12 seasons.
So between the awkward SEC kickoff times and the ABC slot going elsewhere, the state keeps getting squeezed. And with the UFL having already ditched Protective Stadium, the Yellowhammer State doesn’t seem to be getting much help from the people in charge.
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Hurts addressed the reshaped line publicly and said he believes the group can still get better under new offensive coordinator Sean Mannion. For Alabama fans who followed Hurts from his college days, it is another reminder of how often his value is measured not just by production, but by how well he can navigate uncertainty around him. The Eagles are trying to rebuild some stability in a suddenly different environment, and Hurts will be central to whether that happens quickly enough. [Read more 🡒]