Alabama has started to make neutral-site season openers a bit of a regular feature on its schedules, and that does not appear to be stopping anytime soon. Alabama will open this season in Arlington, Texas against the Wisconsin Badgers. Alabama will return next season to open the new football season against the Pac-12’s USC Trojans. As part of the agreement to play USC in 2016, Alabama has been locked into negotiating exclusively with the Cowboys Classic to return in 2019 or 2020.
Per Al.com, the contract states Alabama must “negotiate exclusively with ESPN in good faith through August 31, 2015 in an effort to schedule a football game between Alabama and a non-conference opponent to be held on August 31, 2019 or September 5, 2020 at the (AT&T) Stadium.” In other words, expect to hear some future Cowboys Classic scheduling rumors involving Alabama and any number of power conference opponents over the next couple of months. The contract also prevents Alabama from scheduling any non-conference games that would block Alabama from playing in the Cowboys Classic in both 2019 and 2020 (scheduling in one season is fine, since Alabama will be locked into the other season).
Alabama also wields some power in the scheduling fo the 2019 or 2020 game, because the contract also states television partner ESPN and Alabama must mutually agree on the opponent. So if ESPN wants to send Ohio State to the game and Alabama doesn’t want to play the Buckeyes, they can say no.
Take your pick for attractive opponents for a future Cowboys Classic opponent for Alabama, because there are plenty that would be fun to pair up with the Crimson Tide. If the Cowboys Classic brings back a previous participant to face Alabama, there are some attractive options including Oklahoma, TCU and Oregon. If we can’t get Alabama and Oregon on the same field any other way, perhaps a Cowboys Classic would have to settle it for us once and for all. A few schools with openings in the first week of the 2019 and/or 2020 seasons include Oregon, Florida State, Penn State, Notre Dame and Louisville. Just saying.
Here are the past and future Cowboys Classic games.
- 2009: BYU 14, Oklahoma 13
- 2010: TCU 30, Oregon State 21
- 2011: LSU 40, Oregon 27
- 2012: Alabama 41, Michigan 14
- 2013: LSU 37, TCU 27
- 2014: Florida State 37, Oklahoma State 31
- 2015: Alabama vs. Wisconsin
- 2016: Alabama vs. USC
- 2017: Michigan vs. Florida
- 2018: LSU vs. Miami
- 2019: TBD vs. TBD/Alabama
- 2020: TBD vs. TBD/Alabama
