Indiana just blew up a recent College Football Playoff narriative with blowout win over Alabama
The Indiana Hoosiers Rose Bowl win just changed how everyone will look at the College Football Playoff going forward.
One of the strangest recent trends in the College Football Playoffs is that the first-round bye has become a death sentence. Following the Ohio State Buckeyes’ loss to the Miami Hurricanes, teams that received a first-round bye were 0-6 in that matchup. That curse finally came to an end on Thursday, thanks to none other than the Indiana Hoosiers.
The Hoosiers’ win over the Buckeyes in the Big Ten Championship game cemented them as the top seed in the College Football bracket. This gave them a bye, and the Alabama Crimson Tides’ first-round win over the Oklahoma Sooners set this year’s Rose Bowl matchup. Not only did the Hoosiers break the curse, but they did so in blowout fashion.
Indiana became the first team to win their first matchup in the College Football Playoff after receiving a first round bye
Everything Curt Cignetti has done at Indiana has defied the odds, so it seems fitting that his squad would be the first to win after earning a bye. Indiana dominated Alabama from start to finish, winning the Rose Bowl 38-3.
For other teams, the long layoff that the bye gives teams has been more of a curse than a blessing. The extended rest has led to teams getting off to slow starts, while their opponents, who were coming off a win in the opening round, looked more prepared. That was not the case for the Hoosiers, who took a 17-0 lead in the half and never saw their lead vanish.
The Hoosiers now move on to the semi-finals, where they’ll play the Oregon Ducks in the Peach Bowl. Indiana has accomplished so many things during this magical season, and now they are just two wins away from doing something that would shatter everything people previously believed about college football. Because if a once disaster of a football program like Indiana’s can win a National Championship in football, what’s stopping so many other programs from flipping the script in this new era of college football?
Alabama Crimson Tide News
Alabama’s loss to Indiana in the Rose Bowl is just the latest in what has become a disturbing trend in the Kalen DeBoer era
Alabama’s loss to Indiana wasn’t only disappointing, it was the latest in what has become all too common under Kalen DeBoer.
