CFP first-round takeaways: OU’s special teams collapses, and momentum swings for Bama

The 2025 College Football Playoff got underway in Norman, Oklahoma, on Friday night, and we’ve already seen a first. After all four home teams won by demonstrative margins in last year’s first round, Alabama became the first road team to prevail in a playoff game with a stirring comeback against Oklahoma and a 34-24 win.

Here are the main takeaways. We will update this with each completed game.

What just happened?

Oklahoma’s offense had only 20 minutes in it. The Sooners were perfect out of the gate, bursting to a 17-0 lead against an Alabama team that looked completely unprepared for the moment. But the Crimson Tide adjusted and rallied, and OU had only a brief answer. From 17 down, Bama outscored its hosts 34-7 from there.

We use the word “momentum” far too much in football, but this was an extremely momentum-based game.

1. Over the first 19 minutes, Oklahoma went up 17-0 while outgaining Bama by a stunning 181-12 margin. It could have been worse, too, as the Sooners’ Owen Heinecke came within millimeters of a blocked punt that might have produced a safety or a touchdown.

2. Over the next 21 minutes, Bama outscored the Sooners 27-0, outgaining them 194-59. Freshman Lotzeir Brooks caught two touchdown passes — the first on a fourth-and-2 to finally get Bama on the board (after he caught a huge third-down pass earlier in the drive), and the second TD came on a 30-yard lob that put the Tide up for good. The Tide defense got pressure on John Mateer, and his footwork and composure vanished. An egregious pick-six thrown directly to Zabien Brown tied the score, and Bama scored the first 10 points of the second half as well.

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Zabien Brown stuns OU with game-tying pick-six before halftime

Zabien Brown takes a big-time interception 50 yards to the house to tie the score before halftime.

OU responded briefly, cutting the margin to three points early in the fourth quarter thanks to a 37-yard Deion Burks touchdown. But the Sooners’ offense couldn’t do enough, and kicker Tate Sandell, the Groza Award winner, missed two late field goal attempts to assure a Bama win.

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Tate Sandell’s back-to-back FG misses help Alabama secure 1st-round win

Tate Sandell misses a pair of late field goals as Alabama holds on to beat Oklahoma 34-24 in the CFP first round.

Impact plays

Oklahoma beat Alabama in Tuscaloosa in November — in the game that eventually certified the Sooners’ CFP bid — thanks to a pick-six and special teams dominance. But the tables turned completely in Norman. Brown’s pick-six was huge, and special teams abandoned the Sooners, both with Sandell’s misses and a botched punt in the second quarter.

The botched punt was the second of a two-part sequence that turned the game against the Sooners. First, Mateer passed up an easy third-and-3 conversion to throw downfield to a wide-open Xavier Robinson, but Mateer short-armed the pass and Robinson dropped it. On the next snap, punter Grayson Miller dropped the ball while moving into his punting motion. Bama’s Tim Keenan III recovered the ball at the OU 30, and though OU’s defense held the Tide to a field goal, what could have been a 24-3 OU lead turned into a 17-10 advantage. That set the table for Brown’s pick-six and everything that followed.

The blown early lead leaves Oklahoma with quite the ignominious feat: In the history of the College Football Playoff, teams are 28-2 with a 17-point lead: OU is 0-2, and everyone else is 28-0. Ouch.

See you next fall, Sooners

We knew that whenever Oklahoma’s season ended, offense would be the primary reason. The Sooners survived playing with almost no margin for error for most of the year. Their No. 49 ranking in offensive SP+ was the worst of any CFP team, but they got enough defense (third in defensive SP+), special teams (21st in special teams SP+) and quality red zone play to overcome it.

The Sooners’ defense still played well Friday night — Bama gained only 260 total yards (4.8 per play) — but the special teams miscues put more pressure on the offense, and after a brilliant start, it ran out of steam. Mateer began the game 10-for-15 for 132 yards with a touchdown, 26 rushing yards and a rushing TD, but his last 31 pass attempts gained just 149 yards with five sacks and the pick, and his last nine non-sack rushes gained just 15 yards.

Brent Venables heads into the offseason facing some decisions. OU’s offense technically improved after the big-money additions of coordinator Ben Arbuckle and Mateer, but Mateer was scattershot before his midseason hand injury and poor after it. Do the Sooners run it back with the same roster core, hoping that better health and a theoretically improved run game can give the defense what it needs to take OU to the next level? Does Venables hit the reset button again? Can he ever get all the arrows pointed in the right direction at the same time?

What’s next

Alabama’s reward for the comeback win is a trip out West: The Tide will meet unbeaten and top-seeded Indiana in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1. Bama’s defense will obviously face a stiffer test from Heisman winner Fernando Mendoza and the Hoosiers’ attack, but Bama’s defense has been mostly up for the test this season. The Tide’s ability to pull an upset will be determined by Ty Simpson and the Alabama passing game.

Simpson began Friday night’s win just 2-for-6 with a sack, and though he improved from there and didn’t throw any interceptions — his final passing line: 18-for-29 for 232 yards, 2 touchdowns and 4 sacks (6.0 yards per attempt) — his footwork still betrayed him quite a bit during the game, and he misfired on quite a few passes. Oklahoma’s pass rush is fearsome, but Indiana’s defense ranks seventh in sack rate, and with almost no blitzing. The Hoosiers generate pressure and clog passing lanes, and they held Oregon‘s Dante Moore and Ohio State‘s Julian Sayin to 5.1 yards per dropback with 11 sacks, 2 touchdowns and 3 picks. Bama will be an underdog for a reason.

But kudos to the Tide for getting off the mat. They were lifeless at the start, missing tackles and blocks and looking as unprepared as they did in their season-opening loss to Florida State. But Brooks’ playmaking lit the fuse, and Bama charged back.