Tommy Tuberville still wants a piece of Alabama. In fact, he wants two shots at the Crimson Tide if he can get it.
Tuberville, the head coach of Cincinnati and a former head coach at Auburn, added a spark to the talk of a potential Alabama-Cincinnati match-up during a recent radio interview, suggesting it is difficult to get schools to agree to play Cincinnati because the Bearcats want to lock up home-and-home deals.
“It’s just hard to get a team to say we’ll have a home-and-home with Cincinnati ... it’s a little bit risky,” Tuberville said Tuesday on 94.5 FM in Birmingham, Alabama, as transcribed by Al.com. “We’re just not going to be one of those teams that’s going to just go somewhere and play and not get a return game.”
Tuberville wants Alabama, but it sounds as though he is not getting the response he desires.
“I’m in charge of our schedule right now, so, I’m out there trying to find teams to play,” Tuberville said after being asked specifically about the possibility of playing Alabama. “Now would I be really fired up about (playing Alabama)? Probably not because it’d be a one-game match.”
And therein lies the problem with any potential Alabama-Cincinnati game, which had been rumored to be in the works for 2015. Alabama head coach Nick Saban has complained before about not being able to schedule games, and he has gone on record expressing interest in challenging schedules. Cincinnati may not fit the power conference profile, but they are certainly among the top of the rest of the crop. It is Tuberville’s goal to schedule games against elite opponents because that is the best way to take a shot at the playoff in the end.
“If we’re going to have a chance to get into the Big Dance, you’re going to have to play teams like that,” said Tuberville.