Alabama finally plays well and wins against Oklahoma at the perfect time
By David Wasson
Published:
There are times quite often in sports when the better team coughs up a game for absolutely no reason – despite thoroughly outperforming the opposition, somehow the superior unit is left with nothing but air and regret trying to figure out what exactly went wrong.
Alabama played Oklahoma twice in 2025 in college football, first on Nov. 15 in Tuscaloosa and again Friday night in the first round of the College Football Playoff in Norman – a pair of games that provided stunningly different results.
And while the casual observer would think that it was the Crimson Tide I was referring to in Round 1 and the Sooners in the rematch, well, they’d be incorrect.
In reality it was Alabama that was the better team both times it lined up against Oklahoma. And unlike that inexplicable 23-21 November home loss to the Sooners that helped vault Oklahoma into the CFP, Friday night’s 34-24 Crimson Tide victory showed that winning more plays eventually ends up winning games.
How Alabama came to earn the first true road victory in College Football Playoff history was a circuitous path, as the Crimson Tide began Friday appearing hellbent to prove both that Notre Dame deserved their spot more and that coach Kalen DeBoer might be better off bolting to Ann Arbor for the Michigan job.
To say the Tide looked out of place through the first 15 minutes would be charitable, as Oklahoma rolled up 118 yards to Alabama’s 12, ran 22 plays to Alabama’s 8 and scored 10 points to Alabama’s 0. And when the Sooners made it 17-0 early in the 2nd quarter on a John Mateer-to-Isaiah Sategna III 7-yard touchdown pass, well, the naysayers were at full throat crowing about how Oklahoma was the real deal for a 3rd straight time against once-mighty Alabama.
But what happened after that was a full-swing reverse of the Tide-Sooners go-round in the regular season. That day in Tuscaloosa, Alabama was rolling early but coughed up a punt return for a score and an 87-yard Pick-6 to wipe away a statistically superior game and basically hand Oklahoma the keys to a CFP home game.
Round 2, however, was the polar opposite. First, Oklahoma punter Grayson Miller straight-up dropped a clean punt snap that ended up getting blocked by Alabama’s Tim Keenan III. That miscue helped Alabama narrow the margin to 17-10, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as what came next. Despite Tide defensive back Zabien Brown’s clear presence in the flat on a 2nd down pass play near midfield, Mateer somehow didn’t see Brown at all until Brown was zooming past for a 50-yard Pick 6 to tie it at 17.
Infused with a special teams break and a timely defensive big play, Alabama promptly calmed down on both sides of the football and went about deliberately being better Oklahoma at every critical juncture.
“We had to create our own breaks a little bit, because we knew it would be a fistfight and a physical game,” DeBoer said on the field postgame. “You just gotta keep playing.”
Which is precisely what Alabama did. The Tide bottled up Oklahoma’s offense throughout the 3rd quarter, Simpson started finding his rhythm and hit Lotzier Brooks on a twisting 30-yard touchdown toss to make it 24-17, and even the occasionally-shaky Conor Talty calmly nailed a 40-yard field goal for a 27-17 advantage.
Oklahoma wasn’t done, of course, catching a bit of momentum thanks to a surprise performance by 50 Cent between the 3rd and 4th quarter to score and make it 27-24. But even the more explicit bars of “Many Men (Wish Death)” wouldn’t have been enough to overcome Alabama’s superiority on both sides of the line of scrimmage.
So by the time Daniel Hill’s 6-yard touchdown rumble with 7:29 remaining gave Alabama another 10-point lead, it was apparent that Oklahoma needed more than Grammy-winning rap artists and Boomer Schooners and blinky-blinky lights to overcome the physicality Alabama was delivering.
Not that Oklahoma quit, of course. Again, though, when a better team leans on a lesser team enough, the lesser team shows weakness in spots that were presumed strengths. Enter Lou Groza Award-winning kicker Tate Sandell, who was as crazy automatic all season as his football pants were crazy short, shoving a 36-yard field goal wide left to seal the Sooners’ doom with 2:53 remaining.
All that was left from there was the strains of Yea Alabama pouring down from the cheap seats, with lyrics that include “Remember the Rose Bowl, we’ll win then” that originally referenced the Tide’s 1925 Rose Bowl triumph over Washington that trumpeted the South’s growing football prowess but also signals a return to Pasadena precisely 101 years later to take on No. 1 Indiana on New Year’s Day.
All was finally right in the world of Alabama football, as the Crimson Tide played great against Oklahoma and won the football game all in the same night. What a concept.
An APSE national award-winning writer and editor, David Wasson has almost four decades of experience in the print journalism business in Florida and Alabama. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and several national magazines and websites. He also hosts Gulfshore Sports with David Wasson, weekdays from 3-5 pm across Southwest Florida and on FoxSportsFM.com. His Twitter handle: @JustDWasson.
