Does it make sense for Alabama to cancel home-and-home series vs. Ohio State?

When taking a look at the 2027 and 2028 Alabama football non-conference schedules, the Crimson Tide has a home-and-home series set with Ohio State, but rumors are flying around about Alabama canceling the series.

ESPN SEC analyst Paul Finebaum appeared on 97.1 The Fan in Columbus on Feb. 6, and he has reason to believe that Alabama may cancel the home-and-home series with Ohio State.

“I sincerely doubt the Alabama game is going to happen based on what I’ve heard from Alabama’s AD,” Finebaum said, via Buckeyes Wire Griffin Dreifaldt. “He’s got a shaky situation there anyway with a coach who is in trouble.”

Finebaum is saying the quiet part out loud. Alabama has Kalen DeBoer entering his third season as the head coach, and the Saban-coached players are close to being non-existent as time rolls on. This 2026-27 team will be the youngest team DeBoer has coached since taking the Alabama job, and who knows what the Crimson Tide will do whenever the Ohio State series arrives in 2027.

If the SEC is going to require teams to play one power four opponent each regular season, it makes sense that Alabama may want to schedule a team other than Ohio State, especially when taking a glance at the 2025-26 Texas Longhorns.

Texas scheduled a huge matchup with Ohio State to kick this season off, and the Buckeyes won. However, the loss to Ohio State was damaging to the resume of the Longhorns, and the committee left them out of the playoff as they finished 9-3 on the year. Sure, Texas could have handled their business against Florida or Georgia and made a better case that way, but if Texas never played Ohio State and beat an inferior opponent instead, would the committee make a different decision?

This paints a picture of why the rumor of Alabama canceling the game with Ohio State is spreading. With the SEC moving to nine conference games, teams are reconsidering their non-conference opponents very carefully with the College Football Playoff in mind.

In the spirit of competition and SEC vs Big Ten debates, Alabama and Ohio State is a matchup that all college football fans want to see. No one wants to be the one that runs away from a fight, but if avoiding an encounter with a non-conference powerhouse team is going to make a team’s record look better at the end of the year, then it’s hard to blame a program for choosing this approach and taking advantage of a committee that looks at the number of wins and losses instead of the quality of those wins and losses.

As of this moment, Alabama and Ohio State are set to play each other in 2027 and 2028, but there might be more discussions in the future about the possibility of pulling the plug on this series.