Alabama has played a string of close games this season and managed to escape on multiple occasions, but they were unable to do so yesterday. The Oklahoma game had all of the right conditions for an upset.
They are a tough team, desperately had to have the game to keep playoff hopes alive, and had a bye week to boot. This was a game that we were concerned about all season and it turned out to be justified. A few impressions:
This game was full of the unexpected
As Michael Casagrande noted after the game, this one bucked all of the trends.
Alabama had turned the ball over just six times before Saturday — tied for the third fewest in the nation. Simpson had thrown just one interception before the first-quarter misfire was returned 87 yards for a touchdown and a 10-0 deficit.
And it’s not like Oklahoma’s defense has been a turnover troublemaker. It had snatched just seven takeaways in its first nine games to rank 124th nationally in that category.
Alabama picked the wrong day to trade those trends.
It was indeed a bad time. Alabama fans are obviously not pleased with the outcome, but this just felt like one of those days. There is no explaining Ty’s decision to blindly throw the ball into traffic on first down. If he had it to do over again, he’d undoubtedly pull the ball down and try to make the free rusher miss. Maybe he ends up eating the ball and living to play another down, second and long isn’t the end of the world. The one thing that he absolutely could not do is what he did, and it was uncharacteristic.
Sometimes the defensive coordinator just makes the right call to win a down, and you can live with that. What you can’t do it make it worse with poor decision making. Ty seemed to learn from it as Venables sent the same pressure just before the half, but this time Ty bailed out of the pocket and found Josh Cuevas in the right flat. The turnovers will get the press, but Simpson did throw for 326 yards on 67% passing.
Ryan Williams had picked up 13 yards on the punt return when he fumbled the ball. It was a mistake, but it was a high effort mistake. The sack/fumble was a matter of execution and a bit of awareness on Ty’s part. Alabama had the chance to match the pick six when QB John Mateer hit Justin Jefferson in both hands, but he was unable to secure it. The SEC is going to be a hyper-competitive league for the foreseeable future, and in most weeks game outcomes will be decided by a few plays. Those plays didn’t go Alabama’s way this time.
Give Oklahoma credit: they knew they needed to create havoc on defense to win the game. Had Alabama responded just a bit better in a couple of situations, they could have blown the Sooners out by making them pay for some of the risks that were taken. Perhaps they will meet again and have the opportunity to do so.
The defense was phenomenal
A loss is never fun, but Alabama pretty clearly outplayed Oklahoma for most of the afternoon. The defense was awesome, holding Oklahoma to 4.2 yards per play, 212 total yards and 23% on third down. That is not a stat line that would typically produce many points.
Oklahoma had run for 166 yards per game in its past three, against South Carolina, Ole Miss, and Tennessee. The Tide held them to only 74 on 28 carries, and 38 of those came on the jet sweep to open the second half and Mateer’s touchdown run after the fumbled punt. RB Xavier Robinson had been running wild in recent weeks, but was held to 34 yards on 10 carries.
Oklahoma scored ten points on two possessions that started in Alabama territory, in addition to the pick six. In addition to the run defense, Alabama was able to keep pressure on Mateer all day and the tackling on the perimeter was outstanding. Oklahoma’s offense has hardly been a juggernaut this season, but it was still an encouraging performance by the Alabama defense.
Can Alabama build on this rushing performance?
Daniel Hill appears to have taken over lead back duties. He got 20 total touches to Jam Miller’s 10, and managed 97 total yards including 4.0 per carry. It isn’t going to remind anyone of peak Saban era rushing performances, but it was respectable and that’s better than the run game has been. Hill isn’t going to get a ton of extra yardage but he hits the hole hard and will maximize what the offensive line earns, and he is quite effective as a receiver out of the backfield.
Hill is still rough in pass pro, though. That doesn’t seem to be a strength of any of Alabama’s running backs and teams will assuredly continue to try and exploit it.
Considering the parity in the SEC, spending on a kicker may be a must
I am very much on team “go for it” almost anywhere on the field on 4th and 3 or less, but when you’re playing this many close games, sometimes the soccer players are critical. Oklahoma probably doesn’t win that game yesterday if not for their version of Will Reichard. Tate Sandell may wear hoochie pants, but he has a Sunday leg and, combined with Conor Talty’s shank, that became perhaps the key advantage in this particular contest.
Courtney is probably going to have to allocate a bit of money to the kicker position, as tough as that is to do.
It will be interesting to see how the committee evaluates these teams
Immediately after the game analysts were saying what everyone saw: this game had a ton of fluky elements to it. It’s pretty difficult to lose a game while nearly doubling up the opponent in yardage, but going -3 in turnovers is a good way to do it. An 87-yard pick six is a random occurrence that can’t be counted on in future games, and as mentioned above the turnovers were uncharacteristic of both teams based on the rest of the games played.
Notre Dame, Alabama, and Oklahoma are likely to be ranked 8-10 on Tuesday, but which order is anyone’s guess. If chalk holds the rest of the season, Alabama will play in the SEC Championship Game while ranked as the fourth or fifth highest SEC team in the committee rankings, based on tiebreakers comparing teams that in some cases haven’t even played one another. If that doesn’t highlight just how pointless that game is to crown a “conference champion” then nothing will. The conference championship games probably aren’t long for this world as the powers that be look to expand again.
The margin for error is gone now. Lose to Auburn and the playoff conversation is over, as it should be. In two weeks, Alabama will have a chance to go on the road as the desperate team to cement their spot, in Jordan-Hare against a home underdog Auburn squad that will be playing for bowl eligibility. What could possibly go wrong?
Hope for the best.
Roll Tide.
