2025 College Football Playoff Takeaways: Round 1
Photo from Yahoo Sports
It is officially playoff time in college football, and the atmospheres around the country at these four locations is another reminder that we should simply have home field advantage throughout the whole playoff, and have the title game at the Rose Bowl.
But I digress.
Here is what we learned from round 1.
Alabama defeats Oklahoma 34-24
The offense and special teams botched this game for Oklahoma.
The defense did their job. Alabama got 17 points off of long sustained drives.
The other 17?
A horrible pick six from John Mateer, and two very short fields due to horrible punting mistakes gave them the other 10.
Add in a couple missed field goals for Oklahoma as well, and you have yourself a devastating home defeat for the Sooners.
I always felt like the offense was going to sink how good this defense was.
The special teams just gave them a little help.
Miami defeats Texas A&M 10-3
A&M was reliant on Marcel Reed.
In my preview post, I pointed out that when Reed was terrible in the first half against South Carolina, A&M was down big.
Against Texas, he was bad all game, and they suffered their first loss.
And now, in the playoff, he had another terrible game, and A&M couldn’t even muster a touchdown.
When the lights got too bright this season, A&M faded.
Ole Miss defeats Tulane 41-10
What killed Tulane from making this a fight was the same thing that killed Tulane all season long.
They could not finish off drives.
I know what the score was, and many bad faith college football media members will point it out and say the G5 schools don’t belong, but this game was a lot closer than the score actually indicates.
Tulane had over 420 yards in the game. They moved the ball very well.
But three turnovers will kill you no matter who you’re playing.
Oregon defeats James Madison 51-34
JMU could not get out of their own way with the penalties in this game, but the real story is Oregon’s defense.
You can say they took their foot off the gas or whatever and that’s why they allowed JMU to score 34 points and have over 500 yards of offense in their home stadium.
I’m not buying it.
Oregon receiver Malik Benson said the locker room felt “kind of down, right now.”
Now, they face a very good Texas Tech team.
And if the Oregon defense doesn’t turn things around, it’s going to be a lot harder for their offense to score 50 on a defense as good as Tech’s.
