Alabama’s game at South Florida on Saturday is very much a change for the norm for the Crimson Tide.

Alabama has begun scheduling more home-and-home non-conference games in recent years, but the game in Tampa is an outlier. It’s the Crimson Tide’s first true road game in the regular season vs. a non-power conference opponent in two decades.

The definition of “power conference” has shifted over the years, as have the members in those leagues. For example, South Florida was once a member of the Big East, which was considered a power conference before the likes of Boston College, Louisville, Miami, Pittsburgh, West Virginia and Virginia Tech defected for other leagues within the last 15 years or so.

And defining “power conference” was also slippery before the modern era. Thus, it’s even more difficult to categorize such games in the years prior to about 1980.

That being said, here are 11 other times Alabama hit the road to face “lesser” competition (in reverse chronological order):

1. Hawaii 37, Alabama 29 (2003)

The Alabama athletic department concocted the two-game series at Hawaii as a pair of pseudo bowl games for a team that was ineligible for the postseason due to NCAA sanctions. The second game was far more forgettable than the first, as backup quarterback Jordan Whieldon riddled the Crimson Tide for 247 yards and four touchdowns and also ran for a score. Alabama finished up Mike Shula’s first season at 4-9.

2. Alabama 21, Hawaii 16 (2002)

If it’s remembered at all, Alabama’s first trip to the islands went down in history as the swan song for coach Dennis Franchione, who defected soon after for Texas A&M. Shaud Williams ran for 160 yards and a touchdown as the Crimson Tide jumped out to a 21-3 lead before the Warriors rallied in the fourth quarter behind record-setting quarterback (and current head coach) Timmy Chang. The win gave Alabama a final record of 10-3, its first double-digit win season in three years.

3. Alabama 37, Tulane 0 (1992)

There’s a reason Alabama went 20 years without playing a non-power conference team on the road; the SEC’s expansion to 12 teams — and eight conference games — in 1992 made it tougher to fit them into a schedule that still included only 11 regular-season games at that time. A year after beating the Green Wave 62-0 in Tuscaloosa, the Crimson Tide blanked them again at the Superdome behind 188 rushing yards from Derrick Lassic. It would be the first of two victories for Alabama in New Orleans that season, the other being the Sugar Bowl win over Miami for the national championship.

4. Alabama 10, Memphis 7 (1991)

Alabama and Memphis (then Memphis State) played a weird series in the 1980s and early 90s, a six-gamer with contests in Tuscaloosa in 1983 and 1986, in Birmingham in 1989 and in the Liberty Bowl in 1985, 1987 and 1991. The final game in the series was one of those Gene Stallings-era classics where the Crimson Tide played lockdown defense and scored just enough points to win. Defensive end John Copeland saved the day with a strip-sack of Memphis quarterback Keith Benton at the Alabama 18 with 3:39 to play.

5. Alabama 25, Louisiana 6 (1990)

Strange as it might seem now, Alabama did actually play a game at Cajun Field in Lafayette, La., and in the relatively recent past. A year after surviving a 24-17 victory against Brian Mitchell and the Ragin’ Cajuns in Tuscaloosa, Stallings’ Crimson Tide had an easier go of things away from home in the final game of a “3 for 1″ series (the first two of which were played in Birmingham). Philip Doyle kicked an SEC record six field goals as Alabama beat the school then known as Southwestern Louisiana.

6. Alabama 37, Temple 0 (1988)

Played before a sparse crowd of less than 30,000 in 65,000-seat Veterans Stadium (home of the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles), Bill Curry’s Crimson Tide had little trouble disposing of the Owls. Bobby Humphrey rushed for 91 yards, Kevin Turner scored a pair of touchdowns and Gene Jelks returned a kickoff 96 yards for a touchdown in Alabama’s season opener. Temple played Alabama in Tuscaloosa in 1986 and in Birmingham in 1990, with the Crimson Tide winning those games 24-14 and 41-3.

7. Memphis 13, Alabama 10 (1987)

Among the most-shocking non-conference losses in Alabama football history (right there with Southern Miss in 1982 and Louisiana-Monroe in 2007) came at the Liberty Bowl in Memphis during Bill Curry’s first season as Crimson Tide head coach. Alabama quarterbacks Jeff Dunn and Vince Sutton combined to throw three interceptions, and the Crimson Tide also had a potential go-ahead touchdown wiped out by a holding penalty in the fourth quarter. Memphis State kicker Johnny Butler — an Alabama native — provided the winning points on a 47-yard field goal with 8:28 to play.

8. Alabama 28, Memphis 9 (1985)

Ray Perkins and Alabama had no such trouble in their first trip to Memphis in the six-game series, as Mike Shula threw for 352 yards and a school-record four touchdown passes. The Crimson Tide had lost back-to-back games to Penn State and Tennessee, and the win over the Tigers helped turn their season around. Alabama would go 5-0-1 down the stretch, including a tie vs. LSU and a last-second win over Auburn in the Iron Bowl, to finish 9-2-1.

9. Alabama 29, Cincinnati 7 (1984)

As with the Temple series, this was a “2-for-1″ deal with the middle game played before a relatively tiny crowd (21,000, in this case) in an NFL stadium. Alabama was in the midst of a 4-7 season — its first losing campaign since 1957, the year before Paul “Bear” Bryant’s arrival — but had no trouble dispatching the Bearcats (who were on their way to a 2-9 finish). Alabama ran for 334 yards on a cold and blustery day at Riverfront Stadium, with little-known freshman Don McClain leading the way with 85 yards on 14 carries.

10. Boston College 20, Alabama 13 (1983)

Though they would soon become what was known as a “major independent” before joining the Big East in 1991, Boston College was somewhere in the middle between major and minor in the early 1980s. The Eagles played the likes of Penn State, Clemson and Alabama in 1983, but also Morgan State, Yale and Holy Cross. BC did have Doug Flutie, however, and the future Heisman Trophy winner led the Eagles to a pair of touchdowns on snowy, sleet-filled day at Sullivan Stadium (home of the New England Patriots) that included a power failure that knocked out the TV broadcast for most of the third quarter. Flutie and Boston College also beat Alabama in Birmingham to begin the following season, 38-31.

1. Alabama 17, Rutgers 13 (1980)

Rutgers had a similar profile to Boston College in the early 1980s, and left many in Alabama wondering why the Crimson Tide would stoop to play such a team on the road (never mind that Rutgers, along with Princeton, had literally invented college football in 1869). The game at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., was closer than was comfortable for top-ranked Alabama, which was riding a 25-game winning streak and had claimed back-to-back national championships. Rutgers scored a touchdown to cut Alabama’s lead to 17-12, but coach Frank Burns did not go for two. That ended up being costly when the Scarlet Knights got into field goal range in the fourth quarter. Mike Clements sacked Rutgers quarterback Ed McMichael on fourth down to end the threat, and Alabama held on. The Crimson Tide beat the Scarlet Knights 31-7 in Tuscaloosa in 1981.

Creg Stephenson is a sports writer for AL.com. He has covered college football for a variety of publications since 1994. Contact him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter at @CregStephenson.