Alabama Football: Bold Predictions for The Orange Bowl

When Alabama football and the Oklahoma Sooners meet up in Orange Bowl Saturday, a lot of different things could happen that could shift the favor of the game to either team. Check out some Bama Hammer staff, bold predictions for the game.

Will Bama pull out stops? How good will Oklahoma’s offense actually be? What could Alabama football do to really shift the game in their favor? In the world of college football, these are questions that can only be answered on the field. However, Lauri Springer, from the BH writing staff, and I took a crack at predicting what wild and crazy statistic or event will occur in Miami Saturday night.

Let’s start off easy:

Alabama will call Hurts in the fourth quarter

As leaky as Oklahoma’s defense is, there is a very good chance that Alabama could run up the score on Oklahoma if their offense turns out to be a non-starter. Tua has said that he will be 100 percent by game time and there isn’t much reason to doubt that. It’s been some time since we’ve seen him toss touchdowns like they were thrown rolls at Lambert’s Cafe.

So, it stands to reason that we will get to see the man who saved Alabama’s SEC Championship in Jalen Hurts. If Tua is 100 percent like he says he is, it’s not likely we’ll see Jalen before then. Hurts has his day and will score a touchdown or two more once Alabama has put the Sooners away.

While we don’t see Jalen leading the offense early, we do expect to see more than a couple of plays with both Jalen and Tua in the game, long before the fourth quarter.

Nick Saban will open up the playbook

We think old Saint Nick is going to bring out all the stops for the Orange Bowl showdown versus Oklahoma. He is known to use some trick plays in big games. I expect Tua to light up the field against the Oklahoma secondary, but I think the world might momentarily stop if Locksley pulls a deep route using Jalen Hurts. The duo would solidify their place in Alabama football history books and the heart of every fan if a Tua to Jalen deep ball is executed for a touchdown. I can hear the Eli Gold call now.

We’ll see a big man touchdown

A Tua to Quinnen Williams in the edge of the end zone, like the Hurts to Payne touchdown in the Clemson game last year, is a distinct possibility. Quinnen Williams doesn’t have the opportunity to score often, so let’s send him out of the season with a bang.

Oklahoma will turnover the ball three times

Turnovers could spell disaster for either team, but three turnovers from the Oklahoma offense will be game-ending with an opportunistic defense like Alabama’s. Two of those turnovers will come as interceptions from Kyler Murray. The other will come as a lost fumble with the Heisman Trophy winner coughing up the football in a most un-Heisman-like manner.

Finally…

Alabama Football will hang 60 (or more) on Oklahoma

There is some precedent for this. Alabama has hung 62 before on Ole Miss earlier this season. While Ole Miss shouldn’t be used as a benchmark for the entire Oklahoma team, there is a common thread between the two: defense. The porous Ole Miss defense allows almost everything to go undefended and Oklahoma’s has been known to do the same. Oklahoma isn’t ready for Alabama’s offense and it’s going to cause them to give up 60+ on the scoreboard.

For multiple reasons, not the least of which is Saban is too classy to do it, no one on the Tide staff will say in the post-game “we coulda run up 60 on ’em.”

Fate favors the bold, or so it is said. The Sooners are built to be constantly bold on offense. Boldness is not necessarily Nick Saban’s greatest strength. We don’t care who gets the ‘bold award’ Saturday night as long as the Crimson Tide wins.