It was a simple suggestion made on Monday, and here we are on Thursday still talking about it.
Hugh Freeze's suggestion that Auburn play UAB for its spring game proved two truths: 1) We're all looking for things to talk about this time of year, even with spring ball going on.
2) For some in the state of Alabama, Freeze inadvertently did the equivalent of walking into a family reunion and unscrewing the lid on a jar of live yellow jackets.
"The solution is: allow us to scrimmage somebody on A-Day. Another team. I think everybody would get out of it exactly what they want. And let's adopt a charity to give all the proceeds to... Let Alabama play Troy and we play UAB or vice versa, I don't care. People will come see that," Freeze said Monday.
"Pretty, pretty, pretty please," UAB head coach Trent Dilfer said the next day. "Hugh's right. Whether you're Auburn or Alabama, you're looking for live competition, you're looking not to play yourself. I think if you're UAB or Troy, I think you're looking to hopefully play people that are perceived to be much better than you so you can use it as a test to see where you're program's at."
"I wouldn't have a problem with it. I'd go play," Troy's Jon Sumrall added.
The comment quickly entered the Take Cycle, where other coaches were asked to deposit their two cents into the machine.
I asked Brent Venables about this today — scrimmaging another school in the spring.
— George Stoia III (@GeorgeStoia) April 6, 2023
“Maybe we can get the Dallas Cowboys up here,” he said with a laugh.
That’s a bit ambitious, but I like it. #Sooners https://t.co/wp5YylOrsX
Within state borders, though, some interpreted a different connotation from what was intended to be nothing more than an off-the-cuff remark.
NCAA rules prevent Auburn and Alabama from playing UAB and Troy in April. Nothing prevents the Tigers and the Tide from scheduling the Blazers and the Trojans -- and, lest we forget, the South Alabama Jaguars and the new-to-FBS Jacksonville State Gamecocks -- in September, October or November.
The fact is, Auburn's 29-0 win over UAB on Aug. 31, 1996 amounts to the only time Auburn or Alabama has ever played UAB, Troy or South Alabama.
Freeze's inspired two different columns pointing out this not-so-inconvenient fact within state borders.
While I agree with the spring game thought, and it’s a good first step, it definitely should be just the beginning, wrote Josh Boutwell in the Troy Messenger in a column titled "No question Alabama and Auburn should be playing in-state schools." In the history of Troy Football, the school has played Alabama zero times and Auburn’s varsity team zero times. Troy played the Auburn freshmen squad and the junior varsity team in the 1920s and 1930s but that’s it. How many times has UAB played Alabama or Auburn? Once combined. How about South Alabama? That’s yet another zero. In fact, Alabama hasn’t played a single in-state school outside of Auburn since the 1940s.
For AL.com, columnist Kevin Scarbinsky wrote a piece titled, "Sorry Hugh: but UAB, USA, and Troy deserve more than spring scraps from AU and 'Bama".
First things first. Look on the bright side, and give Hugh Freeze a sliver of credit. Auburn’s new football coach provided a pleasant surprise Monday separate and apart from his terrible, horrible, no-good idea to turn intrasquad spring games into in-state exhibition games.
He mentioned UAB and Troy.
That alone is no small thing. Iron Bowl coaches on both sides of the rivalry have a disturbing tendency to pretend that UAB and Troy don’t exist. They either pay lip service to the notion of playing those in-state opponents while enriching other C-USA and Sun Belt teams -- paging Nick Saban -- or they play in-state opponents with little to no chance of competing with them.
This is not a new issue, which illustrates the problem. We wrote about it way back in 2013, and it's not like we discovered the issue. The last time Alabama played an in-state school other than Auburn was Oct. 7, 1944.
It'd be one thing for the Tide and Tigers to actively ignore its neighbors, but by bringing in the likes of ULM, Mercer, Middle Tennessee and Western Kentucky, the Iron Bowl rivals actively fund their in-state schools' competition. Alabama will pay Middle Tennessee $1.6 million to come to Bryant-Denny Stadium on Sept. 2, money the Blue Raiders will turn around and use to attempt to beat new Conference USA rival Jacksonville State.
Two caveats:
1) Auburn and Alabama are not the only schools to actively ignore their neighbors. Arkansas has never played Arkansas State. Tennessee has faced MTSU twice. Texas, Texas A&M, Michigan and Ohio State do not exclusively schedule their in-state siblings for paycheck games.
2) Pursuant to that, UAB, Troy, South Alabama and Jacksonville State are not wholly dependent on UA and AU for their own paycheck games. UAB visits Georgia in 2023; Troy goes to Kansas State; South Alabama visits Oklahoma State; and Jacksonville State treks to South Carolina.
3) Auburn, at least, is getting better. The Tigers host Samford in September, and in 2025 they'll welcome South Alabama to Jordan-Hare for the first time.
This piece will not change the dynamic in Alabama. Same with Boutwell's and Scarbinsky's. But the issue should still be talked about, if nothing else to make Alabama and Auburn righteously uncomfortable.