The closest analog to Indiana, among the SEC teams Alabama had faced in 2025, was the Oklahoma Sooners – if Oklahoma had an elite running game and a quarterback not prone to making two or three really bad decisions per game.
“If” is such a small word, but when “if” becomes “when,” the landscape changes.
Alabama never could get anything established against Indiana, and while the Hoosiers had few big plays against Alabama, the Crimson Tide couldn’t get consistent stops. Indiana just barely crossed the 400-yard mark in total offense, and mostly did so as the result of several late-game drives from Alabama that were completely reliant on pass plays and ended with Alabama giving the ball back to the Hoosiers more quickly than usual once the drives stalled. But Alabama contributed to the problem by failing to stop or turn the Hoosiers over, especially in the running game in the fourth quarter.
In the end, Indiana was just too efficient, too disciplined. One penalty, 9-of-14 on third downs, no turnovers.
There were also the usual suspects from Alabama – namely, an inefficient running game, made worse by an offensive line too apt to be punctured on any given down. We will be publishing a much-longer-form analysis of Alabama’s 2025-2026 season in the coming days, but to say we’ve seen this movie too many times late in the year would be a gross understatement. For the second time in three games, Alabama failed to score double-digit points, an absolute disaster for a team so predicated on an explosive offense.
Alabama was only charged with a single penalty itself, so it wasn’t like Alabama showed up to Pasadena a technical mess. But QB Ty Simpson’s fumble on a scramble ended up probably being a 10- or even 14-point swing in the final score, and also resulted in him leaving the game with an injury. The one small silver lining to encircle this cloudy game for Alabama was it allowed backup QB Austin Monk to get a significant audition for the 2026 job if Simpson follows through with a move to the NFL this month.
The other item we’ll cover in a wider-ranging evaluation of the program is whether Alabama failed to meet, met, or exceeded expectations in 2025. We believe expectations were met. Alabama made it to the SEC Championship Game and then to the College Football Playoff. It then became the first team in CFP history to win a road playoff game, and advanced to the round of eight. But it also lost four games, and twice in the last month of its season, looked only borderline competitive.
Few good things happen immediately, and Alabama, for two seasons, has pretty well split the range of reasonable expectations right down the middle. The 2026 season will bring even bigger goals and a more critical evaluative eye. For now, the loss to Indiana is a bitter way to finish what had been a very delicious meal, a wine-turned-vinegar ruining what could have been an elegant dessert. But it also means that Alabama finished the season as one of the nation’s best eight teams, and Kalen DeBoer can build on that.
Here’s the Five-Point Breakdown for Alabama-Indiana.
1. Alabama had no answer for Indiana RBs Kaelon Black or Roman Hemby. It was the biggest mismatch on our board during the game preview, and it held up. Black and Hemby both have perfected the art of falling forward for three extra yards. But they were also effective at initiating contact and driving potential tacklers backwards. This shouldn’t have come as a surprise to any Alabama fan or coach who had watched Indiana play in 2025, and likely didn’t, but it also was Exhibit A as to what is wrong with Alabama’s offense at the moment. Indiana rushed for 215 yards; Alabama rushed for 23. It isn’t just the missed opportunities that hurt Alabama, it was the inability to use the running game to take heat off a passing game that gets very easy to defend when there is no threat of run attached.
2. The edge enjoyed by Indiana’s OL was much larger than anticipated. We thought the Hoosiers had the edge there anyway, but believed Alabama’s superior size could help trim the deficit. Alabama’s OL didn’t hold up its end of the deal. The Crimson Tide did find a way to apply pressure to the Indiana passing game – in the first half, at least – getting three sacks and preventing QB Fernando Mendoza from doing anything more than acting as a distraction. But that’s all Mendoza ever really needed to do. The Hoosier running game was too strong, and Alabama couldn’t keep the pressure up in the second half. Another silver-lining moment to this game, if you’re a Bama fan, is that the Indiana OL’s smaller size is proof-of-concept that Alabama’s own desire to get smaller and quicker on the offensive line could wind up paying dividends once the Tide gets one or two more recruiting classes onto campus. Essentially, Indiana’s line is the kind of line that DeBoer seems to want.
3. Alabama DL finished the season the same way it started the year. Aside from the increased pressure on Mendoza at times in the first half, Alabama’s defensive line couldn’t find a way to make a positive difference Thursday. L.T. Overton’s return was welcomed, and he had 7 tackles to finish as the second-leading tackler on the team, but none came behind the line and there weren’t any big moments for the senior in his final game. More problematic was the way Alabama’s tackles were controlled. James Smith was shut out of the box score, while Tim Keenan, Edric Hill and London Simmons combined for 6 tackles but again, nothing in negative space. Indiana actually had more tackles for loss in the running game (3-2) than Alabama despite Alabama only making 17 rushing attempts, while Indiana ran the ball 50 times. There was just a general overall lack of playmaking ability shown by Alabama’s defensive front in this game, when one or two drive-changing plays might have made some kind of difference had they happened early enough in the contest.
4. Left without a running game to fall back on, Simpson wasn’t enough by himself against a good secondary. Simpson was 12-of-16 for the day and didn’t throw an interception, but he only found openings on checkdowns and shorter routes, winding up with 67 total yards of offense. The fumble was a backbreaker – no pun intended, as Simpson’s season of hard hits to the back and obliques finally reached critical mass on the play on which he fumbled. Knocked from the game, Alabama saw Austin Mack look better at driving the ball on deeper routes, but not to the extent that anyone would think Bama has been playing the wrong quarterback up to this point. Simpson tried his best and has a deep highlight reel to remember from the 2025-2026 season, but in a QB-centric offense, Alabama wasn’t centric enough, thanks to Simpson’s injuries and the inability to overcome the lack of a competent rushing attack.
5. The bright spots for the future: WR Ryan Williams, young LBs/DBs, and overall program continuity. First of all, WR Ryan Williams needs to be mentioned because he showed up, caught 6 passes – many of which were followed by big hits – and was the closest thing Alabama had to a difference-maker on the field. The consistently upbeat Williams is easy to pull for, even when drops rise to a maddening number, so this is hopefully a performance to build on. There may be a kudo-within-a-kudo here for new WR coach Derrick Nix, who has worked with Williams the last couple of weeks. Elsewhere, everyone knows by now about young CBs Zabien Brown and Dijon Lee Jr., but Alabama also got some mileage out of freshman S Ivan Taylor, and late in the game, ILBs Q.B. Reese and Cayden Jones. We hope Jones finds a way to stay healthy in 2026, because he has some pop when he can stay on the field. The biggest positive takeaway going forward, though, comes from the lack of chaos in and around the program relative to where it’s been the last 2-3 years, and where it is for other programs at the moment. The next season or two for DeBoer will be critical, but Alabama appears set to head off into this offseason without having to navigate the kind of negativity and uncertainty that several teams – many of them Bama’s rivals – are having to face.
Follow Jess Nicholas on X at @TideFansJessN