Flawed but Fighting Alabama Answers Doubters With a Stunning CFP Comeback Win

NORMAN, Okla. — The Palace on the Prairie was rocking as the wind was sweeping down on the Oklahoma plains for the College Football Playoff curtain-raiser. The 83,550 fans in various shades of crimson were jumping around in jubilance at the start of the second quarter, causing the west-side stands of the Sooners’ Memorial Stadium to sway ever so gently.

Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer was having none of it, perhaps giving some greater consideration to actually becoming the next Michigan coach in a few fleeting moments of stoicism as he tried to block out a disorienting cacophony of red lights and thumping base swirling around the visitors. It looked otherwise flat on the Tide’s sideline, a game feeling like it was already out of reach for a group which was outgunned, outclassed and out of sorts after the first 15 minutes of action to fall into a three-score hole.

The scene was enough to leave many watching to question the selection committee’s judgment at Others Receiving Votes for this dark. FREE. Cheap Rs-flyfishing Jordan Outlet College Football Newsletter. Get Cheap Rs-flyfishing Jordan Outlets College Football Newsletter, which spent a month looking like a title contender at midseason but the subsequent six weeks as the most flawed of playoff participants. It was giving even more credence, more than that, to all the naysayers who still had a hard time grasping the results of the current Tide head coach while holding him to the lofty standards of his predecessor. 

Yet football games are not decided after just a quarter, no matter how heavily tilted it may look to one side. They are 60 long and often agonizing minutes for all involved. 

If you doubted that, Alabama was sure to remind you of it Friday night, roaring back with 27 consecutive points to snatch a victory from the jaws of another defeat to Oklahoma in a 34–24 thriller that turned on a dime from blowout to CFP classic.

“We knew we’d get some of these guys back healthy and that was key for us to feel that we can become the team that we know we are capable of,” said DeBoer after walking off the field with his players beaming like a proud father. “It’s a lot of guys doing a little bit better in everything that they can control. When that happens, like during the game tonight, everyone did a little bit better and then all of a sudden, because of the players you have, they go make a play and change a game.”

Flawed but fighting, talented but tense, the Crimson Tide are improbably still rolling. 

All the way to the Rose Bowl as a matter of fact, where they will ring in the new year against the No. 1 seed Indiana Hoosiers. In terms of history, it’s Hickory vs. South Bend Central if you go by the logos on the side of the helmet. 

In terms of this season however, DeBoer is the one who must perform miracles like Norman Dale. Every motivational tactic, every trick play, every ounce of nous available to guide a group capable of winning it all but that doesn’t get the opportunity to convince outsiders of that type of ceiling too often in 2025. 

It certainly wasn’t the case initially against the Sooners, who looked far sharper on offense than they had at nearly any point since September over the course of the opening quarter. Quarterback John Mateer (307 yards, two touchdowns, one interception) was flinging passes with added zip using a repaired hand that was finally without any sort of a brace for the first time following midseason surgery. The previously stodgy running game was finding success. Brent Venables’s ferocious defense was even more harassing, with the return of end R Mason Thomas helping lead to three consecutive three-and-outs for Alabama.

It had all the makings of a runaway to put a cherry on top of the latest home game on the calendar in Oklahoma history, with the Sooners at one point holding a 17-point lead over a team with just 12 yards of total offense.

“We just knew that [we had] to get one,” DeBoer said. “Those are the things in the offseason we’ve talked about, like what do you do when you’re in that spot? You just chip away, just put pressure on them.

“And at the end, it just flips the other way.”

That it did, hard and fast as if a baton was handed off in this opening leg of a four-round sprint to Miami for the national championship game. For the Tide though, the moment never got away from them; they simply seized it when few expected them to.

Quarterback Ty Simpson (232 yards, two touchdowns) looked reanimated at the start of the second quarter in leading a quick 75-yard scoring drive, evading the rush on fourth-and-3 to find Lotzeir Brooks for his very timely first touchdown of the season (he added a second in the third quarter). 

Then defensive tackle Tim Keenan III trampled his way through Oklahoma’s normally reliable punting unit to block a kick and recover it just outside the red zone. That led to a field goal which cut it to a one-score game, just ahead of the two-minute timeout but Bama was far from done.

After Mateer threw a dart over the middle of the field to Jer’Michael Carter, it sure looked as though Oklahoma was driving to return its margin back to double digits with timeouts to spare and an All-American kicker to call upon if needed. But the elusive dual-threat ran his way into the arms of Justin Jefferson for a sack and then unleashed a throw that completely silenced the previously bouncing crowd.

Taking a quick snap and hoping to find Keontez Lewis in the flat along the sideline, the senior wideout instead took off upfield just as Mateer launched it to his left. Dropping into the same space was awaiting defensive back Zabien Brown, who took the pass to his chest and quickly broke 50 yards for a pick-six. 

It was a tie game just before halftime, but felt like an all but certain Alabama win from that point on.

“All our kids do is they fight and they punch. And they just keep punching,” said defensive coordinator Kane Wommack. “That’s the only way you come back from a 17–0 game like that. You play great team football. You play complementary football with energy and juice. Our sideline is a living, breathing organism and our guys are doing a great job putting themselves in position.”

Shepherding all of that for better—and for worse—this season is DeBoer, who has a knack for knowing how to beat good teams whenever he’s not stumbling against those who typically get overlooked. The 51-year-old is now a remarkable 16–4 in ranked-vs.-ranked matchups, the best mark among active head coaches with at least 10 such games. The first-round game was also his 20th over a ranked team since 2021, trailing only Georgia’s Kirby Smart.

Getting Alabama to play like that consistently, however, has proven to be a bigger challenge than few expected, especially after peaking at the end of October by running through SEC opponents left and right. The Tide were middling but overcame unranked South Carolina and LSU to rise up the polls just as the selection committee got underway ranking teams, only to stumble hard at home against the Sooners in their initial meeting at Bryant-Denny Stadium—improbably losing by committing three turnovers in a game they held Oklahoma to only 212 yards of total offense.

“Keep going, that’s been our message all season,” Simpson said. “We’ve got really good players.”

Few are denying that, with five-stars dotting the roster no matter if they were left over from Nick Saban’s time in charge or recruited under DeBoer as he has subtly made the program his own. 

Now he must keep things going against the program he once helped guide to its modern mountaintop prior to the arrival of Indiana’s Curt Cignetti, ironically enough a former Tide assistant who has shot to the top of the sport since leaving Tuscaloosa, Ala., over a decade ago.

It’s not often that Alabama—the modern yardstick of a successful program in the modern age— will head west to Pasadena as an underdog against one of the most historically unsuccessful teams in the sport’s history.

But they sure are thankful that’s still the case next month after battling back for an opening-round game that underscored just how long every win really is. 

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