Curt Cignetti dominated Alabama with an Indiana team that looked like the Bama of old
SOURCE:The Athletic|BY:Bruce Feldman
If it wasn’t 2026, most football fans Thursday at the Rose Bowl would have thought Indiana was Alabama and the Tide were the Hoosiers.
PASADENA, Calif. — Two years ago, Alabama came to Pasadena riding an 11-game win streak. The Tide were a 2-point underdog against an undefeated Michigan team, but it still felt like it would be an upset if the SEC juggernaut went down in the College Football Playoff semifinals. The SEC had produced the past four national champions, and Nick Saban still ruled the sport. Michigan rallied in the fourth quarter to tie the score and won in overtime en route to becoming the Big Ten’s first champion in almost a decade.
Nine days later, the football world was stunned when Saban retired. Turns out, there was another momentous development in college football that occurred 32 days earlier, although almost no one at the time took note of it.
That’s when Indiana hired an unknown Saban protege named Curt Cignetti. The one-time Alabama assistant talked big — and has produced bigger. On Thursday, an Alabama team that was more than a touchdown underdog to Indiana showed up in Southern California to face a Hoosiers team that methodically pummeled the Tide. Indiana won 38-3 before the famed Rose Bowl sunset took place.
In Cignetti’s first season, in 2024, a program that won nine combined games in its previous three seasons — and just three in Big Ten play — went 11-2, posting its first-ever double-digit-win season in 138 years of football.
Cignetti wasted little time dispelling the notion that it was a fluke. The Hoosiers didn’t match last year’s performance. They exceeded it, making more shrewd decisions in mining the transfer portal and running through the Big Ten, whipping Oregon at Autzen Stadium and then shutting down Ohio State in the Big Ten title game. No other team had gotten after the Ducks or the Buckeyes like Cignetti’s team did. Indiana also produced a Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback in Fernando Mendoza, once the 140th-ranked quarterback in the Class of 2022.
These Hoosiers were built by a crew of former two- and three-star prospects, many of whom had played for Cignetti at James Madison. His team suffocated opponents on defense and picked them apart on offense.
“When he was talking his s—, I was like, ‘Who is this guy?’” one Big Ten assistant told The Athletic last month. “But he backs it up. And when you watch them on both sides, his team is seriously well-coached.”
From a distance, Thursday’s Rose Bowl looked like a college spring scrimmage with both teams outfitted in red and white with their red helmets. If it wasn’t 2026, any football fan over the age of 10 would’ve thought Indiana was Alabama and the Tide were the Hoosiers.
“When was the last time you saw anyone do this to Alabama?” former Indiana player Rhett Lewis asked almost incredulously as the confetti fell from the sky, as he pointed at the scoreboard.
Georgia in the SEC title game?
Only that was 28-7, and this was 38-3. And this is Indiana that did it.
There was nothing gimmicky about the blowout. Indiana was the more physical team. It broke tackles, and then it broke spirits. A signature moment occurred late in the second quarter when 5-foot-9, 170-pound cornerback D’Angelo Ponds, IU’s smallest player on the field, blasted Bama quarterback Ty Simpson on a third-down scramble, jarring the ball loose to set the Hoosiers up at their own 42-yard line. Simpson later left the game with what he said was a cracked rib.
Ponds epitomizes this Indiana team. He was a high school teammate of Ohio State star Jeremiah Smith in South Florida but was considered too small for major college football. JMU, Cignetti’s old school, took a chance on the former high school sprinter. Coaches loved his competitiveness and have been rewarded. Miami and other big schools tried to get him to transfer, but he opted to stay with Cignetti and the staff that believed in him first, so he made the move from JMU to IU.
“That was such an explosive two-step hit too,” said Indiana defensive backs coach Ola Adams. “He just exploded into the guy. I’m not surprised. I know he’s small, but he plays big. He always steps up and makes big plays for us. And that was a big play.”
The Hoosiers, leading 10-0 at the time, ran off an 11-play drive to score right before halftime to go up 17-0. After the half, Bama had the ball and opened with a screen pass to Ryan Williams with two blockers in front of him, but IU safety Devan Boykin beat the block of tight end Josh Cuevas to bring down the Tide’s speedster 2 yards behind the line.
“They’re an extremely well-coached team,” Cuevas said. “We just couldn’t get the small things done. We were missing easy little things here and there, and they weren’t small mistakes either. They were critical to the play. And they’re aggressive. Props to them.”
In a somber Alabama locker room, Tide players gave credit to the Hoosiers but also acknowledged the obvious. This did not look like Alabama football.
Center Parker Brailsford, who followed coach Kalen DeBoer from Washington, where they were on a team that lost to Michigan in the national title game after the Wolverines beat Alabama, said it “sucks” to lose the way they did Thursday. But he tried to be positive and said that the 2025 Tide did improve from DeBoer’s first season in Tuscaloosa.
“I think there’s growth from year one to year two,” he said. “We made the Playoff. I trust coach DeBoer. I am biased. He’s so authentic. A lot of coaches are shady and slimy, but he does exactly what he says.
“I don’t really know what is in the future (for Alabama), but I do think guys will put their heads down and go to work.”
Simpson, who emerged as a star in his first season as a starter, said he’s “never been on a team that was as close” as this year’s Alabama squad.
The Tide didn’t have the edge that Indiana plays with, though.
Adams praised Cignetti for his ability to develop a team atmosphere. The portal era has created new opportunities and new challenges, he said. But it’s never been more important in the sport to be so detailed.
“We’re up 20-something points in the fourth quarter, and I’m straining with my safeties (on the sideline) in the fourth quarter to play a more physical game,” Adams said. “We wanted to re-route their receivers. We wanted to slow No. 2 (Ryan Williams) and No. 17 (Lotzeir Brooks), those guys are really fast and dangerous. If you get hands on these guys, it’s hard for them to get going.
“We’re saying that with three minutes left in the game. ‘Hey guys, when you keep taking these steps, the competition gets harder. We need to use this time to get better. This isn’t time to relax. Physicality is the name of the game.’”
Now, Indiana’s next step is a national semifinal rematch against Oregon at the Peach Bowl, a game away from playing for the national championship.
“This is a testament to our hard work,” said IU running back Kaelon Black, who ran for 99 yards and a touchdown. “Those (recruiting ranking) stars don’t matter when you come to college. Guys get older and they mature. …
“We just execute our game plan and just stay focused and be detail-oriented. … It is easier said than done, but if you have the right group of players, whether they’re from a D-II or a Power 4 program, everything can fall into place.”