The greatest sport in the world has just two weeks of its regular season remaining at its top levels.
Week 12 in college football, especially at the Football Bowls Subdivision level, did not disappoint.
The latest FootballScoop Podcast resets the scene from this weekend's games and in advance of Tuesday night's third series of College Football Playoff rankings.
It also outlines some coaching search news and discussions, from Lane Kiffin and Ole Miss to a nugget on an emerging candidate at UCLA and more discourse on where things are headed in College Park, Maryland, for Mike Locksley, and in East Lansing, Michigan, for Jonathan Smith.
Resurgent Oklahoma, which got a season-defining win at Tennessee earlier this month in the Vols' vaunted black-out game, paired with it a road victory Saturday afternoon at College Football Playoff No. 4-ranked (though not for long) Alabama.
The Sooners built a double-digit lead off a mid-range field goal and a near-90-yard pick-six interception return. In obscure history for these two storied programs, Oklahoma improved to 2-0 all-time at Alabama, the other win coming more than two decades ago during the Mike Shula Crimson Tide era, and also 2-0 against the Tide as an SEC member.
Brent Venables owns both of those wins, and his Sooners own home-field for their final two games -- contests against Missouri and LSU in which the Sooners will be favored to win and secure a 10-win, virtually automatic at-large big in the CFP's second-ever 12-team field.
Playing at home, Alabama started flat and never fully recovered despite a big passing day from Ty Simpson.
The Tide are still just sitting at one loss in SEC play; other opening-game clunker at Florida State hasn't aged well. But they still could end up playing for the SEC Championship as long as they close their regular season with a win at Auburn.
Georgia Tech survived. Notre Dame thrived. USC stayed alive. All this and more in the latest FootballScoop Podcast.
As a reminder, the FootballScoop podcast is available on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, iHeart and....well you'll find it. You also can find us on social media, via The Platform Formerly Known As Twitter: @FootballScoop, @CoachSamz, @JohnDBrice1 and @Zach_Barnett.
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