The Alabama Crimson Tide were one of the founding members of the Southeastern Conference, the SEC.
They had originally been a part of the Southern Conference, but in December 1932, Alabama headed for the SEC instead.
Football in the SEC began in 1933, and Alabama won the first league championship. The Crimson Tide have been the cream of the crop ever since.
The SEC looks very different these days, of course, as college football has changed immeasurably over the last century.
Those changes have brought about an idea recently being discussed by smart college football writers — could the best path forward be independence?
There’s certainly a case to be made that schools like Alabama could benefit from being an independent rather than being in a conference.
The discussion started in earnest with this post on X from Dan Wetzel earlier in October:
College athletics is terrible at seeing problems around the corner. The 24-team playoff is the latest example.
A lot of schools that supported this will regret it because in the end it won’t be about the playoff or even the now diminished regular season.
Notre Dame now has the best situation in all of football – almost 100 percent guarantee to make the playoff, freedom to schedule as it wishes, maximization of its own media value.
To use the Big Ten as an example, why wouldn’t Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State follow? If you can, be independent. That’s the future.
The 18-team Big Ten is bloated, distant and winning it carries little intrinsic or competitive value for the biggest brands.
Those three schools can create a scheduling agreement that would increase their media revenue 2-3x and give the same control over everything. No sharing money. No forced TV times. Eight or even nine home games. Select your own schedule.
Staying in the Big Ten now makes little and perhaps no economic sense. And yes, I do understand the league-wide research grants and so on, but there is always a way around everything.
In terms of athletics, for those schools (and maybe a few more) it’s lost revenue for the sake of loyalty and we know how that usually gets settled.
All these middle and lower schools — even in the P2 — that supported this because they’ll get in the “participation playoff” with an 8-4 record are facing significant risk in the future.
There will come a day when they will now get a share of the Ohio State-Michigan windfall; only Ohio State and Michigan will.
Maybe not tomorrow, but I believe a 24-team playoff makes it closer than ever.
Thoughts?
— Dan Wetzel (@DanWetzel) October 16, 2026
Alabama to Independence
The Athletic’s Stewart Mandel broke this down further in a new article earlier this week.
He wrote:
“Only a small handful of programs could pull it off, and it wouldn’t necessarily be easy. Notre Dame is already running into a problem finding enough marquee opponents to fill a schedule now that they’re all playing nine conference games. But suppose Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, USC, Texas, Alabama and Georgia all joined Notre Dame as independents. They would lock in four home-and-homes between them. Could each of them then do four home-and-homes (32 total) per cycle with ACC and Big 12 opponents? Probably. That’s four home games. Then do two more with leftover B1G/SEC schools and two Group of 6/FCS buy games, and you’ve got yourself seven home games a year.”
Why Alabama Would Go Independent
The answer, as it so often is these days, is money.
Mandel wrote a sentence about Ohio State’s conceptual independent schedule that would apply here, too: “I guarantee you Ohio State would make more money selling those games to the networks than its 1/18th share of the Big Ten’s contract.”
There’d also be a chance to maintain traditional matchups without the risk of conference expansion throwing things into even more disarray.
It’s not something that’s coming officially yet, but it’ll be a narrative to watch out for in the years ahead.
Alabama Has Reason To Become College Football Independent