The University of Alabama announced its 2008 baseball schedule today, which features 33 games in the state of Alabama and 20 games against teams that played in the 2007 NCAA Regionals, Super Regionals and College World Series.
The recent changes to the college baseball schedules have forced teams to play more games in a shorter period of time, creating five-game weeks for most teams throughout the country. Alabama is no different and the complexity of the schedule will have the Tide playing 26 road games this season, the most under head coach Jim Wells and the most by UA since playing 26 road games during the 1994 season.
“It was a very challenging schedule to put together due to the change in the format of the season,” Alabama head coach Jim Wells said. “First of all, we play in the toughest league in the country, then on top of that to have to play two midweek games makes it even more difficult.
“The NCAA’s uniform start date for all teams is Feb. 22, so we lost two weekends of baseball that we used to have,” Wells added. “I think we have a good schedule and we are playing some really good teams. We are on the road quite a bit this year, but most of the road games are in the state of Alabama against some really good in-state teams. We are excited to be going to Florence, Birmingham, Montgomery, Mobile and Jacksonville to showcase the Crimson Tide baseball program. I think that is a good thing.”
The Crimson Tide will play 30 home games this season, including 15 non-conference games and 15 SEC games.
The non-conference home schedule includes series with Cal Poly (Feb. 22-24), Youngstown State (March 7-9) and New Orleans (March 18-19). The Crimson Tide will also play single games against Troy (March 5), Samford (March 12), Jacksonville State (March 25), UAB (April 1), Mississippi Valley State (April 8), SE Louisiana (April 9) and Lipscomb (April 22).
Alabama’s 2008 SEC home schedule features defending SEC Champion Vanderbilt (March 21-23), Ole Miss (March 28-30), Mississippi State (April 18-20), Auburn (April 25-27) and Florida (May 9-11).
