This is an opinion column.
Fernando Mendoza might be the best player in college football this season. The Heisman Trophy voters think so.
Curt Cignetti might be the best coach in college football right now. For the second straight year, the AP national coach of the year voters think so.
Indiana might be the best team in college football at the dawn of 2026. The College Football Playoff selection committee thinks so.
So if all those people that study the sport so closely think so highly of the Hoosiers, who in their right mind would believe that Kalen DeBoer and three-loss Alabama have a real shot to win the Rose Bowl today?
This guy.
Not because of where I live and work. Because of what I’ve witnessed and experienced. Because when a big dog becomes an underdog, when a blueblood seems powerless to stop the ascension of a new blood, strange things have been known to happen.
Especially when the blueblood is the Crimson Tide.
See the 1993 Sugar Bowl when almost everyone – including me – thought Gene Stallings and Alabama had little chance to shut down and shut up the new dynasty, the U, the fast-talking, quick-twitch Miami Hurricanes and their Heisman-winning quarterback, Gino Torretta.
Bill Oliver’s defense knew better. Final score: Alabama 34, Miami 13.
This Alabama defense won’t go down in history like that one, but underestimate Kane Wommack’s group at your own risk, especially with LT Overton back to wreak a little Curry-and-Copeland-style havoc.
Remember the 2008 SEC Championship Game when almost everyone thought Nick Saban and Alabama had little chance to slow the roll of the emerging dynasty, the Swamp Kings, Urban Meyer’s romping, chomping Florida Gators and their one-year-removed Heisman QB, Tim Tebow.
Saban and company were close but not quite ready to take over. After three quarters, Alabama led 20-17. Then Tebow took over and the Gators took charge, taking the lead and taking control to triumph 31-20.
Note to all the IU fans feeling themselves thanks to their unprecedented run of success: Fernando Mendoza is not Tim Tebow.
There’s one more highlight that shows the power of the script A when analysts and experts combine to write off the Crimson Tide. Flash back to the 2023 SEC Championship Game. Georgia was the new bully on the block ready to make Alabama bleed its own blood again.
Kirby Smart had erased the Saban curse two years earlier in the national championship game. The Bulldogs had won two straight big rings and 29 consecutive games. Meanwhile, the Tide had lost a home game to Texas, struggled to beat Alex Golesh’s first South Florida team and needed the miracle called Gravedigger to escape Hugh Freeze’s first Auburn team.
Imagine. All those things happened. Then came this: Alabama 27, Georgia 24.
Those pages from the history book may not mean anything to the Hoosiers. Asked Tuesday how he would convince his players that they’re facing Alabama’s team and not its “mystique,” Cignetti stared daggers at the impudent inquisitor and said, “You probably know more about the mystique than they do. Our guys just know what they see on tape.”
On tape, the 2025-26 Alabama football team doesn’t look like the 1992-93 team or the 2008 team or the 2023-24 team, which sent Saban into retirement with a loss to Michigan in the College Football Playoff in the Rose Bowl.
But Cignetti knows better. He spent four years helping Saban pour the foundation that brought Alabama’s tradition back to life. He was there for two straight statement games against Florida, the “we’re coming” challenge of 2008 and the “we’re here” revenge a year later.
Indiana is here because Cignetti has done masterful work. He’s ignored the program’s woebegone past to keep his team where its feet are, instilling that and other core principles he learned from the master, Saban. It would surprise no one if the Hoosiers took care of business today and rolled on to win it all.
Alabama is here because DeBoer has done exceptional work himself with far less credit. He’s managed one of the more challenging transitions imaginable, making the program his own while following a legend during the most tumultuous time in college football history.
It will surprise a lot of people if the Crimson Tide finds a way to win the day and keep this improbable championship run alive. It will not surprise me.
