Alabama suffers worst postseason loss in program history against Indiana
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Alabama was booted out of the College Football Playoff on New Year’s Day with a kick in the pants that didn’t just reverberate around Tuscaloosa.
It made history and not the right kind, either. Yes, the 9th-seeded Crimson Tide were about a touchdown underdog to top-seeded and undefeated Indiana in the Rose Bowl on Thursday afternoon, but the college football world sat back and witnessed the worst postseason loss in the proud history of Alabama football.
Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza picked Bama apart, and the Hoosiers’ rushing attack piled up 215 yards in a 38-3 lambasting of the Tide. The 35-point quarterfinal loss was 3 points more than Alabama’s previous worst postseason loss, which was a 38-6 setback against Nebraska in the 1972 Orange Bowl. That 44-16 national championship game beatdown at the hands of Clemson to end the 2018 season was also on the infamous list, as the 3rd-biggest postseason loss in Tide history entering New Year’s Day.
Now, that game is 4th on the list, thanks to the Rose Bowl rout that Bama took on its chin that also unceremoniously tossed the Tide out of the national title chase.
Here is the list that no Alabama team wants to join but the 2025 team couldn’t avoid against IU:
Indiana is moving on to the CFP semifinals next week, while Bama is left to wonder how it went so very wrong, to the point of making some very unwanted history in Pasadena.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
