There's not a game on Oklahoma's schedule more important than Saturday vs Alabama

Oklahoma's season will not be made or broken by what happens against Alabama on Saturday, but a win would certainly go a long way toward making it enormously special.

Two of college football's biggest names, Oklahoma and Alabama, meet for just the eighth time on Saturday afternoon in Tuscaloosa in a battle of top-15 teams. Alabama is No. 4 this week in the College Football Playoff Rankings, and Oklahoma sits at No. 11.

Previewing Oklahoma-Alabama

This is homecoming weekend at Alabama, which prompted a reaction from OU cornerback Eli Bowen.

"Yeah, I mean, they scheduled us as their homecoming for a reason," Bowen said this week. "So we gotta come ready to play. We gotta give them our best shot."

Alabama will have a little extra motivation on its sideline, as well, seeking to avenge the 24-3 loss last season at Oklahoma that knocked the Crimson Tide out of the College Football Playoff.

The Sooners (7-2, 3-2) are 2-0 in SEC true road games this season, winning at South Carolina and Tennessee, and are 1-0 in their only other trip to Tuscaloosa (a 20-13 win in 2003).

Both teams are coming off big wins in their last game. The Crimson Tide (8-1, 6-0) defeated LSU 20-9 last week, while OU enjoyed a bye week after beating then-No. 14 Tennessee 33-27 in Knoxville.

Oklahoma owns a 4-2-1 advantage in the all-time series. Saturday's game will be the fourth time the game has been played at a campus site.

The Sooners and Crimson Tide both feature good but not great offenses, but both teams earn their keep playing outstanding defense. Oklahoma leads the SEC holding opponents to 264 yards per game, while Alabama ranks third in the conference, allowing 303.2 yards per game.

The Oklahoma-Alabama game will be televised on ABC at 2:30 p.m. CT on Saturday. This will be the ninth time this season an Alabama game has been televised on ABC. The broadcast crew for the game will be Sean McDonough doing play-by-play, former Alabama quarterback Greg McElroy providing analysis and Molly McGrath doing sideline reporting. Of note, this is the same announcing crew that did the Oklahoma-Auburn "immaculate deception" game earlier in the season.

What to know about Alabama

• Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson leads the SEC in passing touchdowns (21), is second in the conference in passing yards per game (273.4) and is third in passing efficiency (159.5). He has thrown just one interception in 296 passing attempts this season. When Simpson throws the ball, he has a couple of top-notch receiving targets in Germie Bernard (41 catches for 605 yards and six touchdowns) and Ryan Williams (36 receptions for 528 yards and four touchdowns).

• If Alabama has an offensive weakness, it's running the football. The Crimson Tide ranks 14th in the SEC in that category and 119th nationally, averaging just 112 yards a game.

• Alabama lost its season-opening game to Florida State 31-17. Since then, however, the Tide have put together eight consecutive wins by an average score of 34.8 to 15.5.

• The Crimson Tide have won 21 consecutive homecoming games dating back to 2001. The last homecoming loss was to LSU 35-21 in 2001. Alabama defeated No. 21 Missouri 34-0 on homecoming last year.

What to know about Oklahoma

• The Oklahoma offense clearly runs through quarterback John Mateer, who accounts for an average of 288 of the Sooners' 377 yards of offense per game. It has been seven weeks since Mateer suffered a broken thumb in the game with Auburn on Sept. 20. His throwing accuracy and decision making will be key for the Sooners if they are to pull off the upset over Alabama.

• The Sooners may have found a solution to their problem running the football in sophomore running back Xavier Robinson. In his last two games against Ole Miss and Tennessee, Robinson has averaged 112 yards and scored three rushing touchdown, and is averaging over nine yards per carry. Combined with freshman backfield mate Tory Blaylock, the pair have produced 100-yard rushing games four times this season.

• Oklahoma leads the country in tackles for loss, averaging 10.8 per game. The Sooners have recorded at least 11 tackles for loss in six straight games. Forty-nine percent of OU opponents' plays this season have resulted in one or fewer yards.

• In a game against an opponent as good as Alabama, scoring points in the red zone is almost mandatory. Oklahoma is the best in the nation in that regard this season. The Sooners are 28-of-28 in scoring points in the red zone, including 21 touchdowns. In addition, redshirt junior kicker Tate Sandell is 18-for-18 in field-goal tries, including a program record four field goals of 55 yards or longer.

Key matchup

There isn't a college coach in the country that won't tell you that winning the turnover battle isn't a key element in every game, and most especially in the big games. If Oklahoma is going to beat Alabama at its place on homecoming, the Sooners can ill afford to turn the ball over or give it away. Alabama ranks fourth nationally among FBS teams with 16 takeaways and a turnover margin of plus-1.1 per game. By contrast, OU has registered just seven takeaways in nine games, and three of those were in the win over Tennessee in the Sooners' last game.

Prediction

There's little question Oklahoma's road win over 14th-ranked Tennessee provided some optimism for Sooner fans ahead of this weekend's visit to Alabama. Oklahoma is a 5.5-point underdog as of Friday, according to FanDuel. The Sooners have been heavy underdogs before against the Crimson Tide and came out the winners. Bama was favored by 17.5 points in the 2014 Sugar Bowl, but OU won by 14, 45-31. And the Sooners were 13.5-point underdogs last season, but won by 21.

Oklahoma is going to need plenty of Sooner Magic and a clean game offensively to come out the victors on Saturday at the place Alabama fans like to refer to as "The Den."

Alabama 30, Oklahoma 24