PASADENA, Calif. – Alabama was in the red zone for the first time all afternoon with less than three minutes left. A third-down pass was on its way toward Lotzier Brooks. As the ball hit his hands, Indiana safety Louis Moore delivered a thunderous hit to jar the ball free and force the Crimson Tide into a field goal attempt.
Moore got back up on his feet, motioning toward the Indiana fans in the southeast corner of the Rose Bowl.
“I didn’t really get much action before that,” Moore said postgame. “So I just turned around to the fans and said, ‘This is my [expletive]’. It was just a surreal feeling.”
Moore’s words, hopefully unheard by the younger fans in the area, felt necessary. His hit perfectly encapsulates everything Indiana had done to Alabama.
The Hoosier defense put on an astounding performance, holding the Crimson Tide offense to 193 yards in a 38-3 beatdown in the Rose Bowl Game on Thursday afternoon.
Indiana’s program mantra under head coach Curt Cignetti is ‘Fast. Physical. Relentless.’ For 60 minutes on the biggest stage, Bryant Haines’ defense met the moment.
Fast is Devan Boykin surging by blockers for a pair of sacks on his way to a seven-tackle afternoon. It’s Rolijah Hardy meeting Germie Bernard at the line of scrimmage on fourth down to turn Alabama over on downs. And it’s Hosea Wheeler, Mikail Kamara, Mario Landino and Tyrique Tucker shedding blocks en route to tackles for loss.
“You know, our job is to play on their side of the line of scrimmage and try to attack, attack, attack, from play one to the last play,” defensive tackle Tucker said.
Physical is what linebacker Aiden Fisher and cornerback D’Angelo Ponds were when they combined to deliver a bone-crushing blow to Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson in the second quarter. The hit forced Simpson to cough up the football, which Isaiah Jones recovered for the game’s first turnover.
“We practice vice tackling all the time,” Hardy said. “Getting more hits on the quarterback and the ball carriers is what we are trained to do.”
Relentless is Boykin, Daley and Fisher uniting on the far side of the field to bring down an Alabama receiver, even despite the lopsided 35-point margin.
Indiana manhandled the Alabama offense from start to finish. There was nothing the offense could do right, not because of anything the Crimson Tide weren’t doing, but because of Indiana’s relentless mentality of not giving an inch.
It’s a nasty defensive style that never goes too far. Though gritty and physical all afternoon, the Hoosier defense wasn’t flagged for a penalty at any point, a testament to the discipline of Haines’ defense.
Conceding 3.9 yards per play against for a second time this season against a top-10 opponent, somehow still isn’t good enough. After its Friday off day, Haines and the defense will weed through the good just to nitpick its minute mishaps.
“We’re a team that doesn’t do things wrong,” Landino said. “The biggest thing for us is that we do it right.
“I think we achieved that today, but I still think there’s room for us to get better.”
The display of dominance on college football’s grandest stage comes as a surprise to those who hadn’t seen Indiana yet this season. But Thursday was no different than the Hoosiers’ first 13 games.
Schematically, Haines reaffirmed his status as the best defensive coordinator in the country.
He had his unit prepared for everything Alabama threw at it, including a fake punt with Simpson on the field. Once Indiana identified No. 15 in white, the defense appeared ready for whatever trick the Crimson Tide had up its sleeve.
There was nothing Alabama attempted offensively that Haines hadn’t already planned for, further cementing his standing atop the profession.
“[Haines] knew their tendencies and stuff like that,” Ponds said. “I feel he put us in the right positions to do that, and we came out victorious.”
Breaking an offense’s will by the end of the third quarter is a weekly occurrence. Yet, game after game, the national skepticism toward Indiana grows, even with near-flawless execution.
Unfortunately for its opponents, the Indiana defense thrives on turning that skepticism into fuel. Riddled with former zero-star high school recruits, the Hoosiers went toe-to-toe with a blue-chip-laden Alabama roster and emerged with barely a scratch.
Now, Moore and the rest of the Indiana defense can’t wait to hear what the doubters say next. They’ll carry that noise with them into the College Football Playoff semifinal rematch against Oregon in Atlanta’s Peach Bowl.
“We’ll go beat the SEC opponent. We’ll beat Big Ten opponents,” Moore said. “It’s always something or another. They’re moving the goalposts with us.
“They do that a lot. I don’t understand it, but just watch the film. Turn it on – you’ll see something.”
(Photo credit: IU Athletics)
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