There's one stop left on the great Alabama revenge tour of 2025. Oklahoma arrives in Tuscaloosa on Saturday as the final team left on the schedule that beat the Crimson Tide a season ago.
One year ago, Alabama was ambushed in Norman by a mediocre Sooners squad. This year, Oklahoma won't catch anyone by surprise. Brent Venables brings his Sooners to Tuscaloosa with the No. 11 ranking by their name.
There is a lot more than revenge on the line on Saturday afternoon on Saban Field. For Alabama, the Crimson Tide can probably book its ticket to Atlanta for the SEC Championship Game and the College Football Playoff. A loss, and well, I hope you enjoy road Iron Bowls with the season on the line.
Alabama could also return the favor from a season ago and knock Oklahoma out of playoff contention. With two losses, the Sooners can't abide a third and have a realistic path to the College Football Playoff. But a win and Oklahoma would catapult up the standings and be comfortably in for now.
Against arguably the best defense Alabama has seen this season, Ty Simpson and the offense are going to have to be sharper this week than they've been the last couple of games.
The offensive line will also have to hold up against a dominant Oklahoma defensive line and exotic blitz packages that they've been working on for two weeks since Greg Sankey so kindly gave the Sooners a bye week while Alabama played LSU.
It's going to take a complete effort on both sides of the ball to get this done.
Betting Odds for Alabama vs. Oklahoma
Odds courtesy of FanDuel as of 6am ET on Saturday.
Spread: Alabama -5.5
Over/Under: 45.5
Moneyline: Alabama -225/Oklahoma +188
Predictions from the Bama Hammer Team
We all expect a pretty close, low-scoring game. But we're also homers. If you're looking for objective analysis, I would suggest not reading an Alabama fan site.
We're all taking Alabama, but I think we all understand how difficult a task the Crimson Tide has in front of it. It's going to take one of the better games of the season on both sides of the ball to get the job done.
This is far from a perfect Alabama team. It has plenty of flaws, most notably up front on the offensive line and with a running game that has been abysmal all year.
But this team has also proven - time and time again - that it knows how to execute in the most critical moments of each game. They'll need to do that again this week, and we have plenty of faith that they will.
Picks:
John Mitchell: Alabama 24, Oklahoma 13
Josh Yourish: Alabama 24, Oklahoma 16
Ron Evans: Alabama 24, Oklahoma 20
Greg Bosworth: Alabama 27, Oklahoma 24
Dominic Giacobazzi: Alabama 24, Oklahoma 20
Michael Brakebill: Alabama 23, Oklahoma 20