Alabama football is set to make its first SEC road trip of the Kalen DeBoer era on Saturday, when it faces Vanderbilt in Nashville. The Commodores enter the game 2-2, while Alabama is coming off a thrilling win over Georgia at 4-0, and is the newly crowned No. 1 team on the AP media poll.
The game is scheduled to kick off at 3:15 p.m. CT Saturday in Nashville. The game will be aired on the SEC Network.
Before that, here’s what to know about Vanderbilt.
Weirdly enough, Clark Lea and Kalen DeBoer go all the way back to South Dakota. While DeBoer was running the show at Sioux Falls in the NAIA, Lea took his first full-time coaching job at South Dakota State, as linebackers coach in 2007.
“I think we’re both still pretty young, if I can say that, but we were certainly young then” Lea said Tuesday. “Kalen had already built a great reputation as a head coach and I used to see him at clinics. It’s been a lot of fun to follow his career, because I admire the way that he worked his way up through the ranks.”
Lea returned to Nashville to coach at his alma mater in 2021. The Commodores have continued to struggle throughout his tenure, largely due to the innate disadvantages Vanderbilt faces in the SEC.
His best season at VU came in 2022, when the Commodores went 5-7 overall, winning two SEC games.
Prior to joining Vanderbilt, where he played football from 2002-04, he worked as the defensive coordinator at Notre Dame under Brian Kelly, a role he was promoted to after Mike Elko left for Texas A&M. Lea’s career also includes stops at Wake Forest, Syracuse, Bowling Green and UCLA.
After struggling to a 2-10 record in 2023, Lea and company went looking in the transfer portal. VU found quarterback Diego Pavia.
Pavia joined the Commodores after spending the past two years of his career at New Mexico State, having started at New Mexico Military Institute. He won Conference USA’s player of the year award last season with the Aggies, helping them knock off Auburn in the process.
He’s been a bolt of lighting for the Commodores this season. Pavia, listed at a dubious 6-feet tall, 207 pounds, has thrown for 721 yards and six touchdowns so far, and has rushed for another 279 yards and two scores.
The Commodores scored a unique challenge for opponents in Pavia, who they often use in the option game. He’s the key to Vanderbilt’s offense this season, and a change of pace from anything Alabama has seen so far.
Vanderbilt, as is customary, wasn’t expected to do much this season. The Commodores exceeded those expectations in their first game, beating Virginia Tech 34-27 in Nashville.
The next week, VU took down Alcorn State 55-0. After that, things took a turn.
The Commodores lost to the Sun Belt’s Georgia State on the road in Week 3. Then it took traveled to Columbia, Mo., where Missouri was expected to crush Lea’s group.
That didn’t happen. Vanderbilt led much of the way, before the Tigers pulled off the win in double overtime due to a missed VU field goal.
Vanderbilt enters Saturday’s game off a bye week.
The Alabama Crimson Tide are headed back to the Rose Bowl for the College Football Playoff.
One hundred years after Alabama football’s first appearance in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1, 1926, the Tide will face No. 1 Indiana (13-0) in the CFP quarterfinals in Pasadena on New Year’s Day.
Alabama (11-3) rallied from a 17-0 first-half deficit to win its first-round playoff game, 34-24, against the Oklahoma Sooners (10-3) Friday night at Memorial Stadium in Norman.
Ty Simpson threw two touchdown passes to freshman receiver Lotzeir Brooks, cornerback Zabien Brown had a 50-yard interception return for touchdown, and Daniel Hill capped the scoring with a 6-yard touchdown run as the Tide closed the game by out-scoring Oklahoma 34-7 over the final 36:52.
Conor Talty added two clutch field goals in Alabama’s win, its 10th victory overall in the College Football Playoff since 2014, and its first since the Crimson Tide defeated the Cincinnati Bearcats, 27-6, in the Cotton Bowl on New Year’s Eve 2021.
After Alabama’s rally, Tide players did some celebrating on the Sooners’ field.
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NORMAN, Oklahoma — The stage was set for Oklahoma. Heck, the Sooners earned the right to set it. This was supposed to be the ushering in of a new era of postseason football for the No. 8 team in the country that had won 10 games in what was one of the toughest schedules this year.
No. 9 Alabama was even one of those teams that Oklahoma beat on its way to earning this spot. And Saturday night, all was going well for the Sooners. It was going so well, in fact, that after the first quarter, some Oklahoma fans might’ve peeked at flights and hotel rates for the Rose Bowl from inside Memorial Stadium.
And then the Alabama Crimson Tide curled and rolled the Sooners, 34-24, and are headed to Pasadena. After opening with 17 unanswered points, Oklahoma collapsed under the weight of that wave, becoming the only team in College Football Playoff history to blow a 17-point lead. And now, the Sooners have done it twice — before Saturday, in 2018 against Georgia.
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Here are my takeaways from Alabama’s College Football Playoff first-round victory against Oklahoma on Saturday:
NORMAN, OKLAHOMA: Zabien Brown #2 of the Alabama Crimson Tide stiff-arms John Mateer #10 of the Oklahoma Sooners during the second quarter during the 2025 College Football Playoff first-round game on December 19, 2025. (Photo by Brian Bahr/Getty Images)
Crimson Tide quarterback Ty Simpson is an avid reader and listener of college football news. Following the largest comeback win in Alabama postseason history, Simpson took a moment to facetiously thank media members for choosing Oklahoma to win on Saturday night.
“I guess we can thank you guys for that,” an emboldened Simpson said. “You guys kind of wrote us off in a sort of way. So I appreciate that.”
After building a three-score lead, the Sooners watched the Crimson Tide recover a fumbled punt, pick off Oklahoma quarterback John Mateer and return it 50 yards to the end zone — all before their First Team All-American kicker Tate Sandell missed not one but two field goals in the final minutes to solidify the worst collapse in College Football Playoff history.
Meanwhile, the Alabama Crimson Tide will prepare to take on No. 1 Indiana in the Rose Bowl for the CFP quarterfinal game. This team that punches back and played its best football with its back against the wall is one that the Hoosiers must prepare for on New Year’s Day.
[College Football Playoff Predictions: First-Round Winners to The National Champion]
NORMAN, OKLAHOMA: John Mateer #10 of the Oklahoma Sooners is hit by Deontae Lawson #0 of the Alabama Crimson Tide during the first quarter during the College Football Playoff first-round game on December 19, 2025. (Photo by Brian Bahr/Getty Images)
The Crimson Tide began down — just like they did against Georgia in the SEC championship game. But the last three quarters of Saturday’s game demonstrated Alabama to be just who it says it is: the kind of team that can open with a loss to a bad Florida State and also be the first team in six years to walk into Sanford Stadium in Athens, Georgia, and come out with a win.
DeBoer’s task now is to find a way to make certain that the team that showed up at Georgia earlier this season and at Oklahoma in the first round is the same one against the Hoosiers. Linebacker Deontae Lawson said that’s his job too. But Bama’s best trait isn’t one that shows itself until it’s in a fight for its life.
“Man, I just think we’re a resilient team,” Lawson said. “And even though we were down 17-0, we didn’t really look at the scoreboard. Coach DeBoer always says, ‘Keep playing the game. The game will come back to you.’ … We just keep fighting.”
NORMAN, OKLAHOMA: Head coach Brent Venables of the Oklahoma Sooners speaks to an official during the fourth quarter against the Alabama Crimson Tide on December 19, 2025. (Photo by Brian Bahr/Getty Images)
Let’s look at the bigger ones:
These are blunders. Errors that aren’t forced but self-inflicted. It’s difficult to win any game with those kinds of mistakes on your drive chart. It’s nearly impossible in a game of this magnitude, against a team as talented and as resilient as the Crimson Tide.
NORMAN, OKLAHOMA: Keon Keeley #31 of the Alabama Crimson Tide celebrates after defeating the Oklahoma Sooners in the College Football Playoff first-round game. (Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images)
Oklahoma usually plays 50 Cent’s “Many Men” before the start of the fourth quarter. In an attempt to make a statement for its first CFP game at Owen Field, the Sooners brought the rapper himself out onto the field to perform the song for fans in a Hard to Kill Hoodie.
“I didn’t know it was live,” DeBoer said.
“I didn’t know who 50 Cent was,” Simpson said, “but I know that song.”
“We play that song at practice on Fridays,” Lawson said.
RJ Young is a national college football writer and analyst for FOX Sports. Follow him @RJ_Young.
Hello college football fans, and welcome to The Athletic’s live coverage of the 2025 College Football Playoff!
Yes, after a 2025 season full of an incredible amount of twists, turns, controversy and pure chaos, the second edition of the 12-team College Football Playoff gets underway tonight. Our opening matchup is a battle of blue-bloods whose first meeting this season contributed to that chaos, as No. 9 Alabama takes on No. 8 Oklahoma in Norman.
Follow along for live pregame build-up and the latest news, play-by-play updates and real-time analysis from The Athletic’s college football staff!
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