next year.

Alabama's out of conference schedule:
UNC Asheville
AR State
McNeese State (tournament team last year)
@Purdue
Illinois
Houston
Rutgers
@UNC
Creighton
North Dakota
Kent State
SD State

Most of those middle 7 games will end up being Q1 games.

Now why would Alabama do this when their conference schedule is hard. 2 reasons IMO:
1) The committee doesn't count Q1 losses against you. Now, you can't lost all of your Q1 games, but going 5-9 in Q1 games doesn't look bad. Pundits will just say you played a difficult schedule.
2) Nonconference is a great time to get Q1 wins. In Alabama's first hard game (Purdue), they lost in Mackey Arena. Understandable,that's a good team in a hard place to play. Buuuut, Alabama learned more about themselves and gained experience. They then bounced back against Illinois yesterday and won by 10. For these non-conference games, it's my opinion that the team who's played more tough games will have the leg up. They've been in those situations before and know what to do. So, who has the advantage when Alabama plays UNC and Creighton? Idk argue Alabama, because they're already in mid season form. They've just played 4 hard games.

So, even if you lose, the committee won't hold it against you, and, if you schedule a bunch of these games, you should have a leg up over your opponent.

I understand and agree with what BYU did this season for their non-conference schedule. All new staff, new players, we weren't ready to be put under that type of stress. But, maybe going forward, the coaching staff can put BYU into more of these tough schedules. Plus, being battle tested will only help in the beginning of conference play.