Indiana football celebrates Rose Bowl win with rose petals and trophy
The Hoosiers threw rose petals at coach Curt Cinetti as he hoisted the trophy for an emphatic victory in the CFP quarterfinals. Check out the footage from the scene.
- Alabama is basically Illinois now. That’s the unpleasant reality in Alabama. It would work well in Tuscaloosa.
- Karen DeBoer believes there is a “fine line” between Alabama and Indiana. Will you come again?
- The SEC force-fed the poor pie with the CFP and bowl games.
Alabama is now Illinois.
That’s the unpleasant reality in Alabama. I’m sure it will work well in T-Town.
Seriously, show me the difference between Illinois and Alabama the past two seasons. One person is wearing orange. That’s where your differentiation lies. That’s about it.
Remember how Indiana graced the Illini when the two teams met during the regular season? Now, the Rose Bowl has become something of a sequel. The Hoosiers dominated Alabama. What are the important differences? The encore came in the College Football Playoff quarterfinals, not an intraconference rout.
By the time Indiana expanded its lead over once-formidable Alabama to 38-3, it had to accept that there was no real difference between the tide and the 9-4 Big Ten team.
Alabama used to be a team that could beat ranked opponents by 35 points, but now it’s a team that can lose by five touchdowns. It’s going to be a spicy offseason for Karen DeBoer.
Alabama and Illinois each beat Tennessee for something worthwhile. Each team had their moments, and each also produced a few clunkers. Each lost four times.
It’s not a bad team. It’s not a great team either. If we put them against each other on the field, we expect to see a fair fight and a good match. It was a much better game than the one in Pasadena.
I’m not saying Illinois should have been in the playoffs. no way. The Music City Bowl was a fitting destination for the Illini, who defeated an SEC team in a bowl game for the second straight season.
I’m saying it’s time to stop defaulting on giving the SEC the benefit of the doubt. You no longer get that benefit.
SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey once cited Sesame Street to claim that his conference is different from other conferences. It used to be that way. Well, it looks like the other one, or at least the other one – the other one with the B1G jersey patch.
The next time the playoff committee considers bending over backwards to secure a playoff spot for the SEC’s three-loss runner-up team, they should remember that Alabama is now Illinois.
Alabama’s dominance in the SEC is a thing of the past
Even though we had doubts throughout November and again during conference championship weekend about whether the Tide looked like a playoff team, the committee defaulted to giving the SEC the benefit of the doubt when it secured a spot for conference runner-up Alabama.
The committee briefly gained some legitimacy when Alabama won a first-round playoff game. Maybe they just won a playoff game because they played another SEC team. What would Miami or Oregon have done to Alabama in the first round?
The SEC’s relentless dominance and Alabama’s galactic dominance ended with the advent of the NIL and transfer free agency.
If the committee wasn’t ready to admit that before (giving the SEC five bids in this playoffs), maybe after the SEC’s postseason failures, it might be more ready to accept that reality.
Not too long ago, the SEC ruled this block a ruthless bully of college football. The only people who would deny that would be those suffering from a bad case of Big Ten bias.
Right now, the SEC is a papier-mâché tiger, or at least an overrated elephant, propped up by propaganda, effective branding, and an overall slowness in embracing the norms of college football, which have changed more in the past five seasons than in the previous 25 years.
Of the five SEC playoff qualifiers, only one advanced to the semifinals. This comes after no SEC team made it to the semifinals last season. The SEC bowl performance was also disastrous. At least Texas saved face in the conference by defeating upset Michigan State.
Tennessee and Missouri, two 8-5 SEC teams, finished the season without a win against an FBS opponent who finished above -.500.
If Alabama was now Illinois, Tennessee and Missouri were Minnesota.
Still, Tennessee and Missouri spent weeks in the CFP ranks. Minnesota was not ranked.
The Big Ten becomes a laughing stock at the expense of the SEC.
Such is the nature of rivalries, and rivals across the Big Ten will take the SEC’s postseason performance as a referendum on how stinky the Southern Conference is. If the University of Mississippi loses to Miami in the CFP semifinals, that roar will gain even more momentum. The SEC has not sent a team to the national championship game since the 2022 season.
The SEC doesn’t stink. You can’t go around the field anymore.
Blue Bloods had its day. Oh, they had a century. Today, there is more equality than ever before, and Alabama is now Illinois, which is less an exaggeration and more a reality.
That doesn’t mean the CFP committee should start rejecting 10-win SEC teams any more than it should discount 10-win Big Ten teams.
That means the Commission should stop failing to give the SEC the benefit of the doubt in the bubble controversy.
Perhaps the SEC should have given Alabama the benefit of the doubt after getting bullied by Florida and later finding out it wasn’t memorable.
Even if that wasn’t the case, Indiana University’s decision to bring in a backup quarterback for the Rose Bowl debacle puts any doubt to rest. There is no longer a need for him to continue playing as a starter against higher-ranked opponents.
Indiana’s backup quarterback will also play against Illinois.
After Alabama absorbed a beatdown in Pasadena, DeBoer insisted there was a “fine line” between four-loss Alabama and undefeated Indiana. Anyway, that’s his story.
I noticed that there is a thinner line between Alabama and Illinois.
Blake Topmeyer is USA TODAY Network’s senior national college football columnist. Email BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow at X @btoppmeyer.
