College Football Playoff: Josh Pate reveals keys to victory for Alabama at Oklahoma

The College Football Playoff is going to kick off with the Alabama Crimson Tide travelling to Norman to take on the Oklahoma Sooners. There, the Crimson Tide are hoping to get revenge for an earlier-season loss.

That loss to Oklahoma was a key piece in Alabama’s struggles to the finish line and there’s plenty that the Crimson Tide can do better. Josh Pate knows this well. As he explained during a Thursday morning appearance on Get Up, Pate believes Alabama needs to flip the field position battle against Oklahoma’s defense. That means winning the turnover battle and winning in special teams.

“I’ll tell you what jumped off the screen last time,” Pate said. “You can apply what I’m about to say to the Oklahoma and the Georgia game. Bama loses both of them, but in the Oklahoma game, especially, that was the one where they had this long 17-game home winning streak. You can’t beat Bama at Bryan-Denny, and they outgain Oklahoma, threw for over 300 on them. The box score checked out. It looked the way you’d expect an Alabama game to look, but the -3 turnovers turned the game.”

In the first matchup, Alabama scored 21 points on 406 total yards. That was nearly 200 more yards than Oklahoma gained. Still, the Sooners won. That came back to three Alabama turnovers, where Oklahoma protected the ball, and that special teams battle.

Throughout the season, Oklahoma has had some of the best special teams in the country. Kicker Tate Sandell would even win the Lou Groza award as the nation’s best kicker. Meanwhile, Isaiah Sategna was ninth nationally in punt return yards, averaging 13.1 yards per return.

“Also, if you watch the special teams play in this game, the field position battle in this game — and it’s the same with Georgia,” Pate said. “I think OU ended up starting four drives in Alabama territory. I don’t think Bama started at better than their 30-yard line, all game. It was just rinse, repeat in the SEC Championship Game.”

Field position isn’t going to be the only thing that determines how their Playoff matchup works out. Pate knows that. Still, it’s in these margins that close games are decided between teams.

“So, yeah, it’s Ty Simpson decision-making. Let’s be clear, there were a lot of injured guys that [Alabama was] missing they get back here. It’s Ty Simpson. It’s all that,” Pate said. “But it’s field position, man. It’s the complementary nature of football. The three-phase approach that people talk about so much. Well, they failed miserably in one of the three phases that afternoon.”

The Alabama Crimson Tide are set to travel to Norman to take on the Oklahoma Sooners on Friday, December 19th. Kickoff is scheduled for 8:00 p.m. EST with the winner advancing and the loser going home.