The Hoosiers overwhelmed Alabama 38-3 in a Rose Bowl takeover

The winning began before I could even leave town. Standing at my AUS-LAX flight gate, the ratio of Indiana trident logo wearers was something like 12-to-1 over Alabama fans.

Hoosier fans were everywhere, starting at Bergstrom, aboard the plane, all over LAX, and filling the streets of Pasadena. For an Indiana program that hadn’t seen this kind of success in multiple generations, the turnout was stunning. And cathartic. ESPN’s Holly Rowe captured it perfectly, slowly panning her phone across the Rose Bowl crowd. “As you can see,” she said, “this is all Indiana fans.” She was not exaggerating.

This was a pilgrimage and The Rose Bowl was all ours.

Two years after sitting near the bottom of college football, IU continued the sport’s all-time turnaround by pounding Alabama 38-3 in the Rose Bowl.

Just 25 months ago, this team was 3-9 and without a bowl victory in more than 30 years. But everything changed in December, 2023 when Indiana hired Curt Cignetti, a 62-year-old lifer who arrived from James Madison.

Nobody would believe you if you said then: IU’s gonna rise from the losingest program in college football history, it’ll win 25 and lose 2 games under “Cig” with an undefeated regular season in 2025 (and Big Ten title win over #1 Ohio State and be top seed in the Playoff), and it’ll cap the whole deal with a Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback in Fernando Mendoza and a Rose Bowl stomping of blueblood Alabama.

Funny thing, on New Year’s Day in Pasadena, the Hoosiers did not resemble Cinderella in any way. They dominated Alabama in every phase of the game.

Indiana rushed for 215 yards while holding Alabama to just 23. Bama quarterback Ty Simpson played through a fractured rib incurred on a second quarter hit/fumble before being pulled, and the Tide’s struggles drew pointed commentary as Kirk Herbstreit described Alabama as “just existing” defensively.

IU’s offensive lineman Pat Coogan became the first center in Rose Bowl history to win offensive MVP, fitting recognition for an offensive line that coach Bob Bostad rates among the best he’s seen in 35 years.

Memorial Stadium in Bloomington seats 53,000. The IU contingent that filled roughly 70% of the Rose Bowl’s 90,000 seats easily represented the largest assemblage of Indiana fans in one place anywhere, ever.

I reunited with FIJI pledge brothers at the tailgate, many of whom I hadn’t seen in years, all of us delighting in the season we’d just witnessed.

IU’s Rose Bowl win began with its entrance to the stadium grounds. We were at the tented fraternity gathering near the team bus entrance road. When Bama’s bus arrived, tailgaters all around us took note and returned to their conversations.

But 35 minutes later, as IU buses approached, everyone started walking, then running to the road. By hundreds. What a sight, it had to be huge for those players to see hordes of fist-pumping Hoosiers sprinting to see them into the stadium.

The Rose Bowl lives up to the billing. To see Indiana playing there with that kind of fan support was vindication for every disappointing season, every “wait till next year” endured over decades.

Pasadena welcomed the new year with steady rain, the first New Year’s Day downpour there in 20 years. Pregame conditions were wet, but showers stopped near kickoff. Sunshine broke through by the mid-third quarter, offering glimpses of the iconic San Gabriel sunset that defines the Rose Bowl.

And now, time to rip off the rearview mirror.

On to Atlanta and a rematch with the Oregon Ducks this weekend.