BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — When Indiana beat Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship Game on Dec. 6 to claim their first outright conference title in 80 years, it was fair to call it the biggest win in school history. 

Now, the stakes are even bigger.

The Hoosiers are 13-0, and the last undefeated team in college football. They are the No. 1 seed in the 12-team College Football Playoff and face another blueblood in the game on Thursday when they take on No. 9 seed Alabama — an 18-time national champion — at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. 

The Hoosiers are 6.5-point favorites, too, according the Fanduel.com gambling website. They are expected to win, which is hard to wrap your head around considering the vast disparities in their football legacies.

I've watched a lot of Alabama football this season, and there's a lot to learn about the Crimson Tide. They are the only team in the bracket with three losses — at Florida State in the season opener, at home to Oklahoma on Nov. 15 and to Georgia in the SEC Championship Game — and there's a lot to learn from those three games.

Want to beat Alabama? Well, there are three blueprints right there to learn from. They've had a lot of nice wins, too, and we won't dismiss them. But here's where Indiana — the most complete team in college football at every level — will have an edge against Alabama.

Alabama is a good team, but they aren't great. They have flaws, and those flaws can be exploited.

Here are three areas where the Hoosiers have an edge.

Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza has his Heisman Trophy now, and just about every other national player of the year award. He's been that good all year, a very deserving winner. 

Mendoza was 226-for-316 passing for 2,980 yards, with 33 touchdown passes and just six interceptions. He also ran for 240 yards and six more scores. His best trait is his accuracy, and if you give him time, he will pick you apart.

Indiana's offensive line, which has been terrific all year, can give him that time. Why? Because Alabama's pass rush is just not that good. And there are numbers to back it up in their three losses.

Alabama fans like to dismiss the loss at Florida State in Week 1, whining that it was a long time ago. But the fact is this — it's the worst loss of any team in the playoff. The Seminoles went 5-7 this season, and lost seven of their last nine games with basically the same roster they used to beat Alabama 31-17 in Tallahassee.

Alabama's defense barely put up a fight. They had zero sacks on the night, and just three tackles for loss. And Indiana's offensive line is far better than Florida State's. In the other two Alabama losses, they had just two sacks against Oklahoma and only one in the SEC title game loss vs. Georgia.

In other words, Indiana's offensive line will give Mendoza time to find his targets. Alabama's secondary is very good, but so are the Hoosiers' receivers. Mendoza is going to have a big day.

Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson has had a good year, and he was Heisman candidate for a while, too. Their passing attack is very good, but the Crimson Tide have really struggled to run the ball all year. 

Against Florida State, Alabama ran for only 87 yards in 29 carries, a meager 3.0 average per carry. They had only 80 vs. Oklahoma on 33 carries, a 2.4-yard average. Against Georgia, they had just 10 carries for 24 yards, and Simpson's six sacks left them with negative yards rushing for the game. 

Even in some of their wins, they couldn't run the ball. In a 20-9 win over a bad LSU team in early November, they rushed for just 56 yards on 26 carries, a 2.2-yard average.

Indiana will be able to shut down their running game, too. The Hoosiers are third in the country against the run at 77.6 yards per game, behind only Texas Tech and Oklahoma. Ohio State averaged just 2.2 yards per carry against Indiana, too. 

Stop the run, and then force Simpson into some mistakes. It's a plan that can work, and the proof is already there, plain as day to see.

In this matchup, it's far too easy to look at a century of football and figure that Alabama is simply the better team with better players. But in 2025, that's simply not true. Watch all the games — 14 for Alabama and 13 for Indiana — and you can see it as plain as day.

Indiana is simply the better team. They are more physical on both lines of scrimmage — imagine that — and have their own great weapons outside at the skill positions. 

Even college football analyst David Pollack — who's one of the best in the game, and an SEC guy, no less — gives Indiana credit for being the most physical team.

"Can they give (Simpson) some time? Can they protect and not let those free rushers come? It's just crazy to think that we're picking this game and I'm going with clearly the better, more rounded, more physical team in Indiana.

"That's a weird world, man. I think this is the end of the line for the Tide.''

The thing that's amazing too is that Indiana plays with that same mindset, and it's been that way for two years in the Curt Cignetti era. They are a confident bunch, no matter who they're lining up against. Indiana had never won more than nine games in their 130-year history until they won 11 a year ago.

In 2024, they went 11-1 in the regular season and 8-1 in the Big Ten, with the only loss in November at Ohio State, the team that would go on to win the national title. They lost in the playoffs at Notre Dame, the second-best team in the country that lost to OSU in the finals.

Indiana accepted those losses and knew they needed to get better in the trenches. They did that this year, and they are clearly better as a team in 2025 than they were in 2024. Now, they just have to show it. Again.

They were more physical than Ohio State in that Big Ten title game, and no one saw that coming — outside of the Indiana locker room, of course. 

But they've done that all year. They've won at Oregon — which no one does. Outside of the October loss to Indiana, they've won 26 in a row at Autzen Stadium dating back to 2022. They won at Iowa and Penn State, two houses of horrors for most teams. Indiana was 0-14 at Penn State before this year.

In other words, they've taken on teams with rosters full of 4-star and 5-star recruits — and have been the better team — and the more physical team — all year long.

Now, they need to do that again on Thursday.

Tom Brew is the National Editor-in-Chief at Roundtable Sports. You can follow him in Twitter (X) @tombrewsports

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