SEC fans in Alabama got handed a brutal scheduling clash for Week 7, and there’s no sugarcoating it: the league’s time-slot setup leaves a lot of people staring at one screen and missing another.
Auburn’s trip to Georgia in the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry is set for 3:30 pm ET/2:30 pm CT on ABC, ESPN, or the SEC Network. At the exact same time, Alabama and Tennessee will kick off the Third Saturday in October matchup. For fans in Alabama, that’s the kind of overlap that instantly turns a marquee Saturday into a headache.
The night windows don’t exactly soften the blow, either. Arkansas-Vanderbilt and Kentucky-Oklahoma were the games selected for those spots, a pairing that only adds to the frustration when two of the SEC’s biggest draws are already colliding in the afternoon. Kentucky, in particular, had just fallen from ranked to unranked despite beating South Carolina on the road in Week 5.
“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.”
The bigger sting is that the obvious alternative night slot on ABC went somewhere else entirely. Notre Dame-BYU is scheduled for the evening window on October 17 instead of Alabama-Tennessee.
That decision comes down to rights and television logistics. Because the game is being played in Provo and not South Bend, ESPN controls the Big 12-hosted matchup and flexed it to primetime. NBC only has the rights to Notre Dame’s home games.
And when Notre Dame is available, it gets treated like a priority. The Fighting Irish’s opener against Wisconsin drew more than seven million viewers in Week 1, which helps explain why the broadcast networks make room.
Still, it’s hard to miss the way this lands for Alabama viewers. Birmingham, after all, has ranked as the No. 1 highest-rated college football market in the United States for 11 of the last 12 seasons. For a state that lives and breathes the sport, this weekend’s setup feels like a rare miss from the people in charge.
The frustration only grows when paired with the broader sports picture in Alabama. Combined with the way the UFL ditched Protective Stadium, the Yellowhammer State can’t seem to catch a break from the powers that be.
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