Alabama and Oklahoma readying for dogfight in SEC/Big 12 Challenge matchup

Alabama and Oklahoma are set to meet as part of the SEC/Big 12 Challenge today, and the matchup will be at least somewhat familiar for the Crimson Tide. Not only did the two meet two years ago, but Alabama coach Nate Oats even has a current comparison for the Sooners.

And Oats and company know Oklahoma will be fired up.

“With Oklahoma trying to get an NCAA Tournament bid, we know that they’re hungry for a win,” Oats said. “They need quality wins. We’re hungry for a win too, though. We’re playing for a No. 1 seed.”

Oats fully expects a dogfight from Oklahoma, records aside.

“This isn’t a game that you can just go on the road and not take care of business,” he said. “We’re playing for something too. So we’ve got both teams playing for different things and we’re both going to be motivated. We’ve got to know that we’re the No. 2 team in the country in the polls, and teams are going to bring their A game against us. We know that. We just saw it Wednesday night. We barely won the game, we probably should have lost that game. So we’ve got to play a lot better.”

Nate Oats compares Oklahoma to Mississippi State

When Alabama and Oklahoma meet today, Oats believes he’ll see a little something from the Sooners that he’s seen from another team his squad is more familiar with: Mississippi State.

“Mississippi State’s record wasn’t great but they’re a good team,” Oats said. “They’re a lot better than what their record shows. You look at their first eight games in conference, I think they’ve had Tennessee twice, they’ve lost twice. So they’re a better team than what their record would indicate. I think Oklahoma’s the same way with their record in Big 12 play.”

But the comparison extends beyond just a team that has possibly underachieved relative to its talent.

Even Xs and Os wise the comparison works between Oklahoma and Mississippi State.

“Then schematic-wise it’s pretty similar, too. Now Mississippi State’s a lot more aggressive trying to force turnovers, but pick-and-roll coverages, some different stuff like that, it’ll be attacking similar,” Oats said. “We didn’t do a very good job against Mississippi State. We need to do a lot better job, the switching, kind of one through three, one through four depending on where they’ve got Hill at. A lot of that stuff is similar. So we’ve been working the last couple days trying to get better at that stuff.”

The two programs will tip off at 2 p.m. ET with a broadcast on ESPN.