The 5 things Alabama must do to solve Oklahoma and close in on a Playoff spot
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Alabama can smell the finish line of a treacherous journey that has taken it from season-opening disaster to the precipice of a College Football Playoff spot.
From 0-1 to 8-1, an 8-game winning streak has carried Alabama into mid-November with all of its goals for 2025 firmly intact. A trip to Atlanta is within reach after a 1-year hiatus and so is a return trip to the Playoff after missing out last fall as the Crimson Tide crashed and burned in Kalen DeBoer‘s first season.
In late August, some wondered if DeBoer would even survive Year 2. But just 2 months later, some are wondering if DeBoer can win a national championship at Alabama 1 year quicker than Nick Saban, who won his first title in T-Town in his 3rd season. That’s how quickly the tide has turned for the Crimson Tide, because the games are suddenly dwindling and that finish line got a little closer last Saturday night with a predictably rugged 20-9 victory over LSU at Bryant-Denny Stadium.
Seven days later on the same field, an even bigger challenge awaits an Alabama team that remained 4th in the latest AP Poll and CFP rankings. Here comes loaded and rested Oklahoma, coming off a bye after taking down Tennessee in Knoxville 2 weeks ago. The 11th-ranked Sooners (7-2) also arrive with desperation because of those 2 losses, knowing 1 more slip up signals the end of their Playoff dreams, and that just attaches more drama to the 3:30 p.m. ET showdown on ABC.
Alabama will have to do a lot of things to make it 9 in a row on Saturday. But we’ll narrow it down to 5 things the Tide must do to solve OU and move a little closer still to Atlanta and the CFP:
1. Treat Oklahoma with the desperation of a Playoff game
We know the Sooners will absolutely have that desperation. Brent Venables‘ team is on the outskirts of the Playoff discussion at this moment, but that discussion would change drastically if his Sooners can win in Tuscaloosa like they just did in Knoxville. And if that happens, the whole CFP discussion around Alabama changes drastically, too, doesn’t it?
Does Alabama still have a little wiggle room because it’s won 8 in a row and has only lost once? Perhaps. But when it’s this late in the season, the stakes are so high and the competition for Playoff spots is so fierce, the Tide have to treat every game as an absolute must-win. Kalen DeBoer’s streaking team can’t just assume a 2nd loss wouldn’t fully damage its Playoff hopes. Bama must assume the opposite, that 1 more loss would be 1 too many, no matter where that loss comes.
And if it comes on Saturday, things really get complicated because Oklahoma would have the same number of losses as Bama and suddenly have the head-to-head advantage for the Playoff committee to consider on Selection Sunday. The Sooners ruined the Tide’s Playoff hopes right around this time last November with a 24-3 thumping in Norman, which is just another log to throw on the motivational fire for Bama. The Tide have a chance to return the favor in 2025 with 1 afternoon full of payback in Week 12.
Oklahoma knows a win in Tuscaloosa can really pave its Playoff path. Saturday is the Sooners’ last road game of the regular season, and very winnable home games against Mizzou and LSU remain. OU can see the Playoff light, but Alabama must turn that switch off by treating a mid-November showdown like it’s already a Playoff game in December or January. Because Oklahoma surely is. These Sooners aren’t just really good — they’re really desperate, and the Tide must match that desperation or things in their charmed world will change instantly.
2. Beware the team that is undefeated in true road games
Oklahoma’s 2 losses have come on a neutral field in Dallas in the Red River Rivalry against Texas and on its home field against Ole Miss in Week 9. The Sooners are 3-0 in true road games in 2025, routing Temple in Philadelphia way back in Week 3, taking care of South Carolina in Columbia in Week 8 and taking down Tennessee in primetime at Neyland Stadium in their last game 2 weeks ago.
Of course, that last road win in Knoxville was by far their most impressive. It was against a high-octane Volunteers team, at night, in a really tough place to win and in a must-win situation for both teams with each entering 6-2 and trying to prevent that dreaded 3rd loss. Oklahoma was the one that prevented that 3rd loss while effectively eliminating Tennessee from Playoff contention. The Sooners piled up 192 yards rushing, allowed just 63 and survived despite allowing Joey Aguilar to throw for 393 yards.
Oklahoma took every late Tennessee punch, and there were a few of them in the final few minutes, prevailing 33-27 in the de facto Playoff elimination game and sailing into a bye week with renewed hope. For the Crimson Tide, this means a resilient and rested Sooners team will be coming straight for them on Saturday, a team that isn’t afraid of the road 1 bit, a team that just won in a very hostile environment the last time it suited up and a team that has full confidence it can do it again.
Is that enough, Tide fans? Oklahoma has been in Playoff pressure mode since losing to Ole Miss 3 weeks ago. The Sooners dealt with that pressure just fine at night in Knoxville. They’ll take another big swing in the late afternoon in T-Town, and Bama best be ready for it all with its best fastball.
3. Also beware the QB who came to OU for spots like this
Things haven’t exactly gone smoothly for John Mateer in his first year in Norman. He was an early season Heisman Trophy candidate until he broke a bone in his right (throwing) hand in Oklahoma’s Week 4 victory over Auburn. The injury effectively ended Mateer’s Heisman chances, and when he returned to the lineup just 17 days after the surgery for the Red River Rivalry against Texas, he wasn’t the same guy, throwing 3 interceptions without a touchdown pass in a 23-6 loss.
Two weeks later, in another showdown game that Mateer transferred from Washington State to play in, he lost again, this time on his home field to Ole Miss. But Mateer showed his resilience a week later, in hostile territory no less, leading the Sooners to victory at Tennessee and keeping his team’s Playoff hopes alive. His stats weren’t great, but it only mattered that his team won, because these were the moments and the stages that he transferred to the SEC to live out.
This Saturday brings another 1 of those treasured moments, and Mateer knows they are fleeting. He also knows his team’s desperate situation, which he handled quite well a few weeks ago at Neyland Stadium. For Mateer, the Playoff has already arrived, and Week 12 will provide the ultimate stage he came to OU for — a late-season national TV spotlight game, at Alabama, with everything on the line and opposite a quarterback who’s still in the Heisman race he was booted out of a few months ago.
Mateer’s motivation will be off the charts, and that surging Bama defense better bring it again.
4. Be up to the challenge against the SEC’s No. 1 defense
Alabama’s 8-game winning streak and surge up the polls has somewhat masked an offense that’s only been scoring just enough points to win lately. The Tide only had 14 points until a little over 2 minutes remained in that chaotic comeback victory at South Carolina on Oct. 25. A bye the week after didn’t cure those recent offensive struggles, as Bama managed just 20 points in last Saturday night’s grind-it-out win over LSU in which it had only 17 first downs and 344 total yards.
With so much at stake right now, this would be concerning no matter who was on Alabama’s schedule next. But it just happens to be Oklahoma, which just happens to rank first in the SEC in scoring defense (14.1 points per game), total defense (264 yards per game) and tackles-for-loss (10.8 per game). These Sooners are well-equipped to win in Tuscaloosa because their defense is well-equipped to hold the Tide offense down, like LSU just did and even South Carolina did until late in the game.
OU’s D sure has Ty Simpson’s attention. Bama’s quarterback told reporters this week that this will be the most disruptive defense the Tide have faced yet this season. That’s saying a lot, and Alabama’s offense better be a lot better on Saturday than it’s been recently. If not, the Bama defense might not be able to bail the struggling offense out again.
5. Ty Simpson must play like the Heisman contender he is
If Simpson was willing to call OU’s defense the most disruptive that Bama has faced this season before even facing the Sooners’ D, then you know Simpson knows the Tide offense will have its hands full on Saturday. Simpson has lived a charmed life since the Week 1 disaster at Florida State, leading Bama to 8 straight wins while skyrocketing into Heisman Trophy contention in his first season as the Tide’s starter.
Simpson’s stats still look tremendous despite the offense’s struggles the past few games. He’s thrown for 2,461 yards, completed about 67% of his passes, thrown 21 touchdown passes with just 1 interception to go with a QBR of 81.3. But being the perfectionist that he is, Simpson is well aware that he lost a fumble in the LSU game, that the Tide barely reached 20 points and that a few weeks before that Bama was stuck on 14 points until about 2 minutes remained, and 1 of those 2 touchdowns was provided by the defense.
For Bama to beat Oklahoma, Simpson doesn’t necessarily have to deliver a Heisman-winning performance. He just has to play like the Heisman contender that he’s developed into over the past few months. That means no more lost fumbles and some more points scored. If Simpson is indeed Heisman-worthy, this is the game that will prove it, facing a ferocious defense and a desperate team, at home, on national TV, in mid-November.
If Simpson succeeds on Saturday, it would be hard to imagine Alabama failing.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
