Alabama Football faces off with Oklahoma in the College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Orange Bowl. Here’s five reasons the Tide will roll in Miami.
This season’s Orange Bowl offers up one of the most intriguing semifinals since the inception of the College Football Playoff with a litany of storylines surrounding the game.
Most of those revolve around the two quarterbacks, the consensus two best players in college football in Heisman Trophy winner Kyler Murray of Oklahoma and runner-up Tua Tagovailoa of Alabama.
The two quarterbacks have had historic seasons, with Murray landing the Sooners a second consecutive Heisman Trophy winner while shouldering a brutal load in Norman, and still carrying his team to the top of the Big 12 and to a second straight playoff appearance.
Tagovailoa exceeded his incredible hype coming into the season off of his virtuoso performance in last season’s National Championship Game against Georgia where he ultimately threw one of the most famous passes in the history of the sport, one that will be talked about from years to come, the 41-yard touchdown strike to Devonta Smith in overtime to win the game.
He brought Alabama’s offense to heights never before seen in Tuscaloosa. Under Nick Saban and historically, the Crimson Tide has always been a defense-first team. While the defense was still very good in 2018, it was the offense that took center stage, with ruthless efficiency leading to bludgeoning after bludgeoning as they raced through the regular season.
Alabama was finally challenged against Georgia, and overcame the adversity of a two-touchdown deficit and ultimately pulled out a 35-28 win thanks to the heroics of backup QB Jalen Hurts, who forever writ his name in crimson flame when he dashed through the Bulldogs defense and into the endzone for the decisive touchdown.
Oklahoma poses a lot of problems for Alabama’s defense, and while Vegas is bullish as ever on the Tide, offering them as a two-touchdown favorite, the Sooners have the firepower to make this game a shootout and severely reduce the margin-of-error, meaning one fatal mistake could be all it takes to flip the outcome, one way or the other.
While I’m not as bullish as Vegas, I do believe that Alabama should come out on top and advance to their fourth straight National Championship Game in search of their sixth national title in the last decade. Here are five reasons Alabama will get the better of Oklahoma: