Scheduling: Saban turns down Wisconsin series offer

Nick Saban has turned down The University of Wisconsin’s offer of a home-and-home series, the Wisconsin State Journal has reported.

According to the report, ESPN had tried to push for having Alabama play Wisconsin at a Neutral Site, but Wisconsin AD – and  former legendary Badgers head coach – Barry Alvarez  said current coach Brett Bielma “countered with an offer to play a home-and-home series with the Crimson Tide — no specific years were discussed — but that Alabama coach Nick Saban declined.”

CBSSports noted in an article that Saban is much happier with his Alabama team playing games at neutral sites rather than home-and-homes, and noted that Alabama haven’t played two BCS conference opponents in any one year.

Having said that, the report noted that Alabama HAS played Penn State (twice), Virginia Tech, Clemson and Florida State in the last five years (they have a 4-1 record). Here is a look back (and forward) at some of Alabama’s schedules.

BOTTOM LINE: While we’re looking forward to seeing Alabama play Michigan in 2012, Virginia Tech in 2013, and West Virginia in 2014, we wish Nick Saban would play more home-and-home games, because we still fervently believe that the best teams should be able to play in the harshest environments, instead of souped-up, big-for-TV regular season ‘bowl’ games that are games at Cowboys Stadium or the Georgia Dome. In other words, we’ll give the Crimson Tide less credit for winning a neutral site game than AT the Big House or AT Hokie Stadium or IN Morgantown (plus, the gameday atmosphere’s much better for home-and-homes, too!).