00:02For much of the week leading up to that matchup, Oklahoma was, in fact, a one-and-a-half-point home underdog.
00:09By the time they kicked off Saturday night in Norman, the Sooners were a one-and-a-half-point home favorite.
00:15They took care of business in the first quarter.
00:17They were hitting on all cylinders, built a 17-to-nothing first-half lead.
00:22But Alabama weathered the storm.
00:24They got a Ty Simpson touchdown pass.
00:26The defense forced a stop.
00:28They made a special team's play.
00:30And all of a sudden, they get a pick-six right before the half to tie that matchup up at 17.
00:36They had all the momentum and pull away in the second half to win it decisively, 34-24.
00:43As I told you throughout the week, Kaelin DeBoer was on the hot seat.
00:47But based off that performance, he got off in a big way Friday night in Norman.
00:52Yeah, I think he just slid that hot seat over to Norman, Oklahoma for available.
00:57This is what he did, because that's going to be a very hard loss for them to live with throughout the offseason because of the way in which they lost.
01:06They were a 17-point favorite.
01:08They came out ready to play.
01:09But, you know, the question is, how do you handle adversity?
01:12Alabama got behind 17 points, and they handled adversity.
01:16They came and attacked and scored a touchdown and got it moving.
01:18And then when they came back and scored and tied it up, Oklahoma panicked, and they hit adversity, and they did everything wrong.
01:26But it was a situation where you just did, if you could name this, the Cardinals' sins in football.
01:31Turned the ball over twice.
01:32Won a pick-six on a misread by the quarterback.
01:37Two kicking team breakdowns by all-conference punter and all-conference kicker who missed two field goals.
01:43And then a fourth-and-two short yardage play, which Oklahoma made a great call.
01:48And Oklahoma, I mean, Alabama and Oklahoma could not stop.
01:51And then from that point forward, it just was an implosion by Oklahoma.
01:56Alabama showed what a team is supposed to do in a championship round, and credit has to be to them.
02:02But Oklahoma will have a hard time living with that game throughout the offseason.
02:06It will, and from a front-seven perspective, it wasn't the rush defense, right?
02:11They held Alabama in check to 28 rushing yards on the evening, 1.1 yards per rush.
02:17But it was the secondary that did get abused by Ty Simpson.
02:21They allowed 232 passing yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions.
02:26And people will say the pick-six was really the turning point in that matchup.
02:31But, you know, a couple of plays before that, up 17-7, Oklahoma was faced with a third down.
02:38Mateer looked like he could break, contain, and run for the first down,
02:42which potentially would have put the Sooners up maybe at that point 20-7,
02:46or even more importantly, 24-7.
02:50And instead, he throws a dime to Xavier Robinson.
02:54Robinson caught it in stride, but he dropped it.
02:57It didn't lead to a first down, and Oklahoma was forced to punt on the ensuing play.
03:03Alabama gets the block, and that really changed the momentum for the Crimson Tide in the first half.
03:10Well, you know, well, passes are going to be dropped.
03:12And again, that's a big drop.
03:14But the problem was an all-conference punter gets a perfect snap into his hands.
03:19You have to kick that one and punt it 100% of the time.
03:23You can't let that happen.
03:24You can't have a perfect snap dropped and muffed.
03:27That went to a three-point changeup.
03:29That's three free points.
03:31And then you throw the pick six, which was a terrible read by the quarterback.
03:34That's seven more points.
03:36That's ten points that Alabama got strictly on mistakes.
03:41When I look at this game, I don't think you can look at offense or defense.
03:43It was the breakdowns that Oklahoma had, the huge breakdowns.
03:48All-conference, I mean, Lou Groza, award-winning field goal kicker,
03:51missed two field goals that he always makes.
03:54That's six points.
03:55Add up the things they didn't do right.
03:58And that overcame every single thing because Alabama did not run the ball very well.
04:03The quarterbacks statistically weren't that much different.
04:06But the fact was, Oklahoma made every key mistake that you can make to give a game away.
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