Over the years, Alabama fans have mostly become accustomed to the Tide opening up the season with a marquee matchup at a neutral site. However, Nick Saban won so many of those that the entire college football fandom decided to stop playing them and pretend they weren’t fair. So now the Tide has to schedule things differently with playing teams like Texas in back to back years at both stadiums, which leads to more scheduling conflicts, and ultimately teams like Middle Tennessee State pick up the slack and come to Tuscaloosa for the season opener.
Look, the Blue Raiders are a Conference USA school, and there’s no amount of sweet talking that will boost them up to the level of the upper-tier of college football.