Oklahoma vs

Alabama

at Orange Bowl
Sat, Dec 29
ESPN
5:00 PM Pacific
WatchESPN
Rotation: 253
Odds: Alabama -14, Total: 77

Game Analysis

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Lean – Oklahoma (+14)  36   Alabama  45

Saturday, 5 pm Pacific

A lot has been said about how bad Oklahoma’s defense is but that unit was actually average over the course of the season when excluding garbage time stats, as their starters allowed 5.9 yards per play to teams that would combine to average 5.9 yppl to an average team. I actually rate the Sooners’ defense a bit worse than that using only the 7 games since the change of defensive coordinators during the week 7 bye and Alabama will certainly be able to score a lot of points in this game with an attack that averaged 48 points per game and 8.0 yards per play against a schedule of teams that are collectively 0.3 yppl better than Oklahoma’s defense. My math model projects 595 yards at 8.4 yppl for the Crimson Tide in this game and they easily could score more than the 45 points my model projects.

The big question is how well Alabama’s elite defense (14.9 points and 4.4 yppl allowed to teams that would average 6.1 yppl) can defend perhaps the best offense in the history of College football – at least it’s the highest rated offense in my 31 years. The Sooners averaged 49.5 points and 9.0 yards per play this season (against teams that would allow 5.6 yppl to an average attack) and they’re 0.3 yppl better than that with Kyler Murray at quarterback and with freshman RB Kennedy Brooks getting more touches. Brooks only had 4 total runs in the Sooners’ first 4 games but he still leads the team in rushing with 1021 yards on just 113 runs, which is an incredible 9.0 yards per rush. Alabama is 1.2 yards per rushing play better than average defending the run but Oklahoma’s offensive line is better than Alabama’s defensive front and the math model projects 6.6 yards per rushing play for Oklahoma in this game. Murray, meanwhile, is projected to average 8.4 yards per pass play, which would be only 0.1 yppp better than his worst performance of the season (8.3 yppp against TCU).

Oklahoma is projected to gain 447 yards at 7.4 yppl and the Tide do have a significant advantage in projected yards (148). However, Oklahoma has elite special teams that rate nearly 2 points better than Alabama’s good special teams units and Nick Saban’s defense does have a history of playing relatively worse against quarterbacks that can run and throw the ball effectively.

Since 2008, when Alabama’s defense started to dominate, the Tide have played 152 games and they’ve allowed more than 31 points in only 10 of those games (1-9 ATS). Most of those bad defensive performances were against dual threat quarterbacks. In 2013 Alabama allowed 42 points to Johnny Manziel and Texas A&M and 34 points in a loss to Cam Newton’s Auburn Tigers. That same year in the bowl game, Oklahoma’s Trevor Knight led the Sooners to a 45-31 win as a 16.5 point underdog. In 2014 dual-threat QB Nick Marshall led his Auburn team to 44 points (Bama managed to win that game) and later that season Ohio State beat Alabama 42-35 as a 9 point underdog with Cardale Jones at quarterback. Jones wasn’t as good of a runner as J.T. Barrett was but he ran the ball a lot against the Tide in that game. In 2015 it was Chad Kelly, who ran for 646 yards at 7.3 yprp that season, who beat Bama 43-37 during the regular season and later that season dual-threat superstar Deshaun Watson ran for 89 yards and threw for 391 more as Clemson nearly beat the Crimson Tide in the national championship game as a 6.5-point underdog. In 2016 it was Ole Miss and Chad Kelly putting up another 43 points against Alabama’s defense with his combination of running (62 yards) and passing (405 yards on 43 pass plays) and later that season Deshaun Watson and Clemson got their revenge in a 35-31 Championship game upset of the Tide in which Watson ran for 73 yards and threw for 395 yards.

Nick Saban is very good at defending one-dimensional quarterbacks, but quarterbacks that can run and throw effectively have given Saban fits. Alabama is going to be in the right defense most of the time but quarterbacks that can create with their feet can beat a well-designed and executed defensive play, which must drive Saban nuts. This season the only quarterback that was could both run and throw effectively to face the Alabama defense was Texas A&M’s Kellen Mond, who ran for 129 yards on 11 runs but wasn’t a good enough passer to beat Bama – although the 5.5 yards per play by the Aggies in that game was the most of any team against the Tide defense other than Georgia, who gained 5.7 yppl. Mississippi State has a good running quarterback but Nick Fitzgerald is easy to defend because he’s a terrible passer. Kyler Murray is the best passer Bama has faced since Deshaun Watson beat them and Murray ran for 973 yards at 9.0 yards per run and he’ll run more if he needs to. So, while my math model projects a 10 point win by Alabama I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if Oklahoma scored more points than projected given Alabama’s troubles with quarterbacks that can run and throw effectively. I like Oklahoma here.

  • Team Stats
  • Game Log
  • Oklahoma
  • Alabama
OKL
Offense
Defense

Rush

  • Run Plays 35.2 36.5
  • Run Yards 256.2 152.5
  • YPRP 7.5 4.6




Pass





  • Pass Comp 19.5 21.9
  • Pass Att 27.8 35.4
  • Comp % 70.1% 61.8%
  • Pass Yards 323.6 283.4
  • Sacks 1.3 2.2
  • Sack Yards 7.9 14.2
  • Sack % 4.5% 5.9%
  • Pass Plays 29.1 37.6
  • Net Pass Yards 315.8 269.2
  • YPPP 10.9 7.2

Total

  • Total Plays 64.2 74.2
  • Total Yards 579.9 435.8
  • YPPL 9.0 5.9

TO


  • Int 0.5 0.5
  • Int % 1.9% 1.3%
  • Fumbles 0.5 0.4
  • Turnovers 1.0 0.8
 
  • Points 49.5 32.4
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