It did not take long for Alabama athletics director Greg Byrne to share his thoughts on the Crimson Tide 's bowl path.
Minutes after Alabama football's ReliaQuest Bowl against Michigan was announced, Byrne put out a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, sharing his disappointment regarding the Crimson Tide missing a chance at the 12-team College Football Playoff.
And with that, Byrne shared that his approach to Alabama football scheduling may be changing.
"Disappointed with the outcome and felt we were one of the 12 best teams in the country," Byrne said. "We had an extremely challenging schedule and recognize there were two games in particular that we did not perform as well as we should have. We have said that we would need to see how strength of schedule would be evaluated by the CFP. With this outcome, we will need to asses how many P4 non-conference games make sense in the future to put us in the best position to participate in the CFP. That is not good for college football."
Byrne then said there was no need for Alabama players and coaches to "hang our heads."
"We have a great group of young men who have led us with coach (Kalen) DeBoer through the last year and we look forward to our opportunity in the (ReliaQuest Bowl)," Byrne said.
Alabama lost three SEC games – to Vanderbilt, Tennessee and Oklahoma – keeping the Crimson Tide out of the CFP.
Alabama won each of its non-conference games against Western Kentucky, South Florida , Wisconsin and Mercer.
In the days leading up to the final CFP bracket release, Byrne made his pitch in favor of Alabama saying "not all schedules and conferences are created equal."
"We've worked diligently to add more challenging nonconference home-and-homes, which is good for college football, not to mention the week-in and week-out of the SEC and it being the toughest in the country," Byrne wrote.
Alabama will take on Michigan in the ReliaQuest Bowl at 11 a.m. CT Dec. 31 in Tampa, Florida.
Colin Gay covers Alabama football for The Tuscaloosa News, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at cgay@gannett.com or follow him @_ColinGay on X, formerly known as Twitter.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Why AD Greg Byrne may assess Alabama football scheduling after first CFP bracket
