First-Round Playoff Primer and Predictions: Breaking down the Alabama-Oklahoma rematch, plus the rest of the opening weekend

Breaking down each of this weekend’s first-round matchups in the 2025 College Football Playoff. (A bold • indicates Matt Hinton’s pick ATS.)

OK, you’ve had your grace period for griping. Got the phlegm out? Fired off all your takes about the committee? Been banned from the group chat for venting about Notre Dame? Exhausted your vocabulary to describe your feelings about Lane Kiffin? Sufficiently harangued your significant other about how there are just too many dang teams in the field, or not enough? Let everyone within earshot know exactly how you feel about a bracket that features the likes of Tulane and — this can’t even be right — James Madison? Good. Time to get over it.

It’s time to take a break from the endless jabber about what’s wrong with this preposterous sport and where it is headed and enjoy some ball. If you’re reading this, you’ve probably been looking forward to this weekend for most of the year, or at the very least wasted an unhealthy amount of time to thinking about it. You might be, let’s be honest, just a little bit burnt out. I get it. In some ways, the college football hive mind is only just beginning to acclimate to the rhythms of the expanded Playoff era, which as it turns out is demanding more not just from players and coaches, but from its audience, too. A longer season requires longer attention spans. The old, familiar December lull is a thing of the past. Rivalries and conference championship games, traditionally the emotional climax of the season, feel as urgent as ever in real time and then, as soon as they’re over, like merely a prelude. You reach what used to be the end of the wick, and suddenly there is more. A lot more. Collectively the sport is still in the process of ginning up energy and meaning in a part of the calendar where there has previously been none, with all the angst that process entails.

Well, here is your chance to forget all that. I’m sorry I brought it up, actually. As one of an apparently shrinking number of Playoff defenders, I look forward to the day when the format feels like a tradition in its own right, gripes and all, as routine as the weather. Judging from the state of the discourse lately, that might be awhile yet. In the meantime, we’ve got the games and national championship odds. So let’s get on with it.

Alabama (-1.5) at Oklahoma

Most teams at this point can look back on their season and point to a game they wish they could play over again. Alabama is the rare team that will actually get its chance.

Statistically, Bama dominated its Week 12 date against Oklahoma just about every way till Sunday. Per ESPN’s Bill Connelly, the Crimson Tide’s post-game win expectancy based strictly on the box score was 95%. They outgained the Sooners by nearly 200 yards overall, and by nearly 2 full yards per play. They gained twice as many first downs. They converted more 3rd and 4th downs. They controlled time of possession, committed fewer penalties, generated more explosive plays and finished with a higher success rate. And they lost, 23-21, very nearly derailing their entire season in the process.

The only category Bama didn’t win was the only one that ultimately mattered: Turnovers. The Tide committed 3, a season-high, without forcing any in return. Those giveaways led directly to 17 of Oklahoma’s 23 points. The most dramatic, an 87-yard pick-6 in the first quarter by OU’s Eli Bowen, extended the Sooners’ lead to 10-0 in the early going. In the 2nd quarter, a punt return fumble by Alabama’s Ryan Williams set up Oklahoma’s offense with a short field; the Sooners cashed in 2 plays later on a 20-yard run by QB John Mateer, their only offensive touchdown. And a strip sack at the end of the 3rd quarter — a result of the same blitz scheme that led to the earlier pick-6— set up a go-ahead field goal by OU’s automatic-from-anywhere kicker, Tate Sandell, which turned out to be the final points of the game.

Looking at the real-time win probability chart from that game, you can see the immediate impact of those 3 plays alone register like an earthquake on a seismograph:

Of Alabama’s 3 losses, a nail-biter decided on a handful of big swing plays is a lot easier to gloss over than the straight-up butt-kickings at the hands of Florida State and Georgia that bookended the regular season. But if the Playoff committee had the guts to boot the Tide from the field following their flop in the SEC Championship Game, the one they let slip away against the Sooners is the one that really would have haunted them for the next 9 months.

If only the redemption arc was as straightforward as replaying the same game minus the killer mistakes. Oklahoma’s pass rush, in particular, has earned a little more credit than that. The front seven has been a rock all year, and was arguably at its best down the stretch in the absence of its headliner, senior edge rusher R Mason Thomas. (Thomas hasn’t played since injuring his quad on Nov. 1 on a 71-yard scoop-and-score fumble return at Tennessee, but reportedly returned to practice this week and was not listed on the initial injury report.) For the year, the Sooners finished in the top 5 nationally in rushing defense, yards per carry allowed, tackles for loss, sacks and havoc rate, and rushing success rate, holding 6 of 8 SEC opponents (including Bama) below 100 yards on the ground. Eleven different players recorded at least 5 TFLs.

In that sense, marginal as it was, the blitz-happy win in Tuscaloosa looks less like an outlier than proof of concept for OU’s grimy style of play. Zooming out a little further, you could even say it was the moment the transition from the high-scoring, shootout-friendly teams of the Lincoln Riley era to the defensively-driven, slug-it-out Sooners under Brent Venables was officially complete.

The flip side of that dynamic was an erratic, frustrating offense that never really moved the needle on its own. Oklahoma only had one truly bad game on that side of the ball, failing to reach the end zone (or come close) in a 23-6 loss to Texas. But those glaring swathes of red in the tale of the tape speak for themselves. In SEC play, the Sooners ranked 14th out of 16 teams in total offense, just below a trio of teams (Auburn, Florida and Kentucky) that fired their respective head coaches in large part due to their failure to score. Mateer, who at one fleeting point in late September was the betting favorite for the Heisman, wound up squarely in the bottom half of the conference by almost every relevant measure, including Total QBR, pass efficiency and passing success rate. In addition to the defense’s contributions on the scoreboard, OU also benefited enormously in close games from the presence of Sandell, whose right leg accounted for the winning margins in single-digit wins over Auburn, Tennessee, Alabama and LSU. With a less reliable kicker, this team’s trajectory likely looks very different.

The Sooners are not bereft of playmakers. Slot receiver Isaiah Sategna III, a former sprinter with field-tilting speed, led the SEC in conference play in receiving yards and receptions of 20+ yards, including lightning-strike touchdowns against Ole Miss (76 yards), Missouri (87 yards) and LSU (58 yards) over the second half of the season. But few secondaries have been stingier when it comes to giving up big plays than Alabama’s — only Ohio State, led by former Bama safety Caleb Downs, has allowed fewer 20+ yard completions — and the thing with lightning is that it rarely strikes more than once. Mateer didn’t attempt a pass of 20+ air yards in the first meeting in Tuscaloosa, and is just 5-for-27 on downfield attempts (per Pro Football Focus) since returning from an injury to his throwing hand at midseason.

Not that Ty Simpson‘s performance in the home stretch was anything to write home about. Simpson is another former Heisman frontrunner whose stock took a nosedive in November, culminating in a miserable performance against Georgia his last time out. Four of his 5 interceptions on the season came in the past 4 games, including his costly pick-6 against Oklahoma. Unlike Mateer, however, when he’s on, Simpson has proven capable of consistently sustaining drives with his arm; it wasn’t that long ago that scouts were raving over his midseason run against Georgia, Vanderbilt, Missouri and Tennessee, projecting him as a future first-rounder. So it turns out that was a little bit too much, too soon. If his protection holds up and his receivers hold on to the ball — a couple of big ifs, as Bama fans know well — Simpson at his best is still a difference-maker.

Prediction: • Alabama 24 | Oklahoma 19

• • •

Miami at Texas A&M (-3.5)

If you have strong feelings about the committee’s decision to snub Notre Dame from the field in favor of Miami, or the process by which it came to that decision, more power to you. At this point, that debate has run its course. (I would have argued for including them both and snubbing Alabama, but for some reason the Committee has yet to hand me the gavel.) For what it’s worth, though, let the record show that Miami plainly meets the threshold of a Playoff team. The Hurricanes were a consensus top-10 outfit according to the advanced metrics, including SRS (6th), FPI (7th), Jeff Sagarin (7th), SP+ (9th), and FEI (9th) — below Notre Dame but above both Bama and Oklahoma across the board. Besides their much-celebrated head-to-head win over the Fighting Irish in the opener, the ‘Canes ran the table against in-state rivals USF, Florida and Florida State in decisive fashion, and pulled out of a midseason slump to win their last 4 regular-season games by 17+ points apiece. Their 2 losses, against Louisville and SMU, came by a combined 9 points, the latter in overtime.

If not for those 2 games, we would have heard a lot more about Carson Beck as a serious Heisman candidate. Unless you had the misfortune of following the ACC on a weekly basis, it was easy to lose track of Beck, the former Georgia quarterback who was lured out of declaring for the draft last winter by the U’s bid to make him the highest-paid player in the portal. If accurate, his reported $3.2 million NIL valuation would be higher than the base 2025 salary for half of the starting quarterbacks in the NFL. (As always, take all reported NIL figures with a grain of salt.) Whether he ultimately justifies that number remains TBD based on what happens from here on out. But the ‘Canes are here, and by and large Beck has been the guy they expected him to be. In their 10 wins, he was outstanding, completing 76% of his passes for 9.1 yards per attempt and 23 touchdowns vs. just 4 interceptions. That line is very similar to his 2023 campaign at Georgia, which established him as a potential first-rounder.

In the 2 losses, on the other hand, he looked more like the combustible 2024 Carson Beck whose stock waned over the course of a month-long interception spree. He threw 4 INTs against Louisville, including the dagger with Miami within range of a potential game-tying field goal in the final minute. He served up 2 more at SMU, the first of which (although not Beck’s fault) set up a short-field SMU touchdown in the first half, and the second of which (definitely Beck’s fault) effectively doomed the ‘Canes in overtime. Per PFF, 5 of those 6 picks came from clean pockets.

To his credit, Beck was essentially pick-free over the course of Miami’s 4-game winning streak to close the season, throwing just one in his final 112 attempts vs. 11 touchdown passes in the same span. Meanwhile, his counterpart in Saturday’s game, Texas A&M’s Marcel Reed, went on a bit of a November turnover spree of his own. Beginning in Week 9, Reed threw multiple interceptions against LSU, South Carolina and Texas, resulting in a negative turnover margin in each of those games. Reed also coughed up a fumble against the Gamecocks that led to a scoop-and-score touchdown in what would turn out to be the wildest game of the season. In the end, despite opposite trajectories in the Heisman race, Reed and Beck finished with an identical TD-to-INT ratio while averaging an identical 8.7 yards per attempt.

The Jekyll-and-Hyde quarterback duel is only one of the many ways these teams are alike. Between A&M’s KC Concepcion and Miami’s Malachi Toney, both offenses boast triple-threat weapons who combined for more than 2,600 all-purpose yards as receivers, punt returners, and gadget-type rushers. Both defenses are anchored by disruptive front lines featuring a couple of consensus All-Americans, A&M’s Cashius Howell and Miami’s Rueben Bain Jr., bound for the first round of next year’s draft. The highly decorated edge rushers will line up across from a couple of highly decorated offensive tackles, A&M’s Trey Zuhn III and Miami’s Francis Mauigoa, who have been entrenched starters since they were freshmen. Both defenses notably excel at getting opposing offenses off the field on 3rd down. The most notable names on the respective injury reports, A&M running back Le’Veon Moss and Miami DB Keionte Scott, are both expected to be back in the fold following extended absences at the end of the regular season. And in the final accounting, both teams are roughly adjacent in every advanced metric.

One key difference that could matter in a close game: Miami has significantly more trust in its kicker, veteran transfer Carter Davis, who has hit 14-of-16 field-goal attempts in his first season on campus. On the other side, A&M’s tandem of Randy Bond and Jared Zirkel went just 15-for-24 on field goals, and just 5-for-11 from beyond 40 yards. They combined for 4 misses in the past 3 games, 3 of those coming on attempts within 40 yards. Not an encouraging trend, to say the least. But then, when you have to resort to scouring the kicking stats to come up with something that vaguely resembles a definitive edge, it’s anybody’s game.

Prediction: • Miami 29 | Texas A&M 27

• • •

Tulane at Ole Miss (-17.5)

The first time these teams met, the result was a 45-10 romp that saw Ole Miss outgain Tulane nearly 2-to-1 and the Green Wave fail to reach the end zone until well into garbage time. I doubt a single soul who watched even a second of that game in September thought to themselves, “I can’t wait for the rematch.” Well, here it is anyway, set to kick off exactly two months to the day – to the hour, in fact – after Round 1, on the same field. In the committee’s defense, given the way the dominoes fell on the final weekend, they weren’t left with much choice. 

Let’s see, has anything changed in the meantime? Oh yeah: Both head coaches are moving on. Ole Miss’ head coach already skipped town, abandoning a 6-year-old project within sight of the finish line to rebuild the contender he built in Oxford at a rival school. That’s right. Yet for all the prolonged drama that surrounded Lane Kiffin‘s departure, as far as the next few weeks are concerned it’s hard to say how much he’ll be missed, if at all. Other than Kiffin’s mercurial presence itself, not much else has changed. Ole Miss moved quickly to preserve as much continuity as possible, dispensing with the “interim” business to elevate defensive coordinator Pete Golding directly to full-time head coach. Whether that move pays off down the line, for now at least there are no concerns about his investment in this team/opportunity or his attention being divided. Between Golding and offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr. (who will follow Kiffin to LSU after Ole Miss’ run ends), the Rebels retained both play-callers and ensured minimal disruption to game-planning or day-to-day prep. The lineup is as healthy and intact as it has been all season. The hay is in the barn.
 
From Tulane’s point of view, the biggest change from the first time around may be the simple fact that Trinidad Chambliss is now a known quantity. Back in September, Chambliss was a virtual unknown making just his second D-I start in place of an injured Austin Simmons; he took full advantage of the audition, accounting for 419 of Ole Miss’ 548 total yards against the Wave and supplanting Simmons as QB1 from that point on. Chambliss went on to finish 5th nationally in Total QBR, 8th in the Heisman vote, and might have found himself in NYC last weekend if not for a 4th-quarter fadeout at Georgia that stands as the Rebels’ only blemish. He’s not sneaking up on anybody anymore, if it makes any difference.

Of course, the Green Wave would like to think they’re a different team in December than the one that got shellacked in Week 4. They’ve won 8 of their past 9 en route to an American Conference title. A couple of those wins came at the expense of ranked-at-the-time opponents, Memphis and North Texas. The defense just held UNT, the nation’s highest-scoring offense, to a season-low 21 points its last time out. Quarterback Jake Retzlaff, a transfer from BYU, has settled in after arriving barely a month before the opener. And generally speaking, Tulane as a program is far removed from the days when a lopsided loss could be chalked up as just another Saturday at the office, even when it comes at the hands of a top-shelf SEC opponent.

Unfortunately, that all amounts to a pretty flimsy case for a 5-touchdown swing on Saturday. Take another look at the Tale of the Tape: Where’s the green? What are the Green Wave good at? For the conference champs, they were relatively sparsely represented on the postseason All-AC team as voted by league coaches. Their best statistical category, takeaways, is a notoriously random one, and boosted by 3 outlier games against Northwestern (+5 in turnover margin), Florida Atlantic (+3) and North Texas (+5) that accounted for the entirety of their +10 margin for the season, with insurance. In their only conference loss, a 48-26 blowout at UT-San Antonio in late October, the Wave committed 4 giveaways while also giving up 523 total yards on 32-of-34 passing. 

At the time, the debacle at UTSA was considered a virtual death knell for Tulane’s Playoff hopes, before the pendulum swung back in the Wave’s favor in November. Even from the other side of a 5-game winning streak, that game makes the idea that they’ve turned some kind of corner since their first trip to Oxford less convincing. Updating the trophy case is one thing. But if their only chance of being anything other than one-and-done fodder at this level involves a flurry of turnovers, Jon Sumrall may as well go ahead and plan to spend his New Year’s at his new job.

Prediction: • Ole Miss 37 | Tulane 17

• • •

James Madison at Oregon (-21.5)

For a lot of people tuning in to this game, it will be the first time they’ve encountered the name “James Madison” since their 10th-grade history chapter on the War of 1812. What is a former teacher’s college named for a founding father doing in the College Football Playoff?

Don’t mistake obscurity for irrelevance. Before its leap to the FBS ranks, in 2022, JMU was a perennial FCS power, claiming national championships in 2004 and 2016. The Dukes’ transition to the FBS might be the smoothest on record: In 4 years, they’re 40-10 overall with AP top-25 appearances in 3 of those seasons. The coach who oversaw that transition, Curt Cignetti, is … well, you don’t need to be reminded anymore who Curt Cignetti is. JMU transfers have played an indispensable role in Indiana’s rise to the top of the sport. His successor, Bob Chesney, has matched Cignetti’s record over the past 2 years and is bound for UCLA in 2026. Billy Napier is on deck. As long as the CFP format reserves an auto-bid for a G5 conference champ, get used to the Dukes being in the running. 

Of course, the current team, ranked 24th in the final CFP committee rankings, would not be here if not for the comedy of errors that led to unranked Duke claiming the ACC crown, thereby freeing up the 5th and final auto bid. It would have been slated for the, uh, (checks notes) Salute to Veterans Bowl? Still, JMU comes by the opportunity about as honestly as it could have under the circumstances. Since their only loss, a 28-14 decision at Louisville in Week 2, the Dukes have won 11 straight by a margin 23+ points per game. They got dudes. Dual-threat QB Alonza Barnett III was the Sun Belt Player of the Year, accounting for more than 3,000 total yards and 35 touchdowns. Senior LB Trent Hendrick was the Sun Belt Defensive Player of the Year. RB Wayne “Hello Newman” Knight broke out with 1,642 scrimmage yards, good for 4th nationally. 

As a team, JMU comes in ranked in the top 10 in scoring offense and scoring defense, and among the top 2 or 3 G5 teams according to every advanced metric. In fact, the same metrics all have the Dukes at least 15 spots higher than Tulane. Put it this way: If an auto bid hadn’t fallen into their lap, awarding the sole G5 ticket to the Green Wave would have been at least as dubious as the snub the committee dealt to Notre Dame, whether anyone outside the SBC or western Virginia noticed or not.

All of which is to say, this is an outfit that deserves a little better than to be dismissed as a speed bump on the biggest stage in school history. It is true that James Madison has yet to record anything like a “signature” win as an FBS program; the nearest equivalent is probably a wild, 70-50 shootout at North Carolina in September 2024 in which Barnett accounted for 487 yards and 7 TDs. JMU hasn’t beaten another Power 4 team since (the loss at Louisville being their only opportunity), and only beat 1 team this season currently ranked in the top 50 per SP+: No. 48 Old Dominion. Saturday night will also represent the biggest talent gap the Dukes have faced at this level, by far. Oregon’s roster ranks 5th according to 247Sports’ Team Talent Composite, where to find JMU’s you have to scroll all the way down to No. 127. (Of course, Indiana ranks No. 72 in that same metric … and the Hoosiers have favorable odds to win it all.)

The gap on the field is not quite as wide as that. But an upset in Eugene would immediately rank among the biggest stunners in postseason history – easily surpassing, for example, Boise State’s classic overtime upset over Oklahoma in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl. (The spread in that game was a mere 7.5 points.) At this point in the calendar, stranger things actually have not happened, at least in this sport. But then, that’s the whole point, right? If nothing else, the Dukes have earned the dignity of playing the game. The rest, finally, is up to them.

Prediction: Oregon 34 | • JMU 16

Matt Hinton

Matt Hinton, author of 'Monday Down South' and our resident QB guru, has previously written for Dr. Saturday, CBS and Grantland.