AI-produced: generated with AI tools and reviewed by Ayokunle Spencer.
Indiana beat Alabama 38-3 in the 112th Rose Bowl on January 1, 2026. It was the Hoosiers' first Rose Bowl appearance since 1968, their first bowl win of any kind since 1991, and Alabama's most lopsided defeat since 1998.
The line of scrimmage decided it
The final margin was 35 points, and the reason was not exotic. Indiana outgained Alabama 407 to 193. The Hoosiers rushed 50 times for 215 yards; Alabama managed 23 rushing yards on 17 carries, an average of 1.4 per attempt. Indiana converted 9 of 14 third downs. Alabama converted 3 of 11 and went 0 for 2 on fourth down.
Fernando Mendoza, in his first game after winning Indiana's first Heisman Trophy, completed 14 of 16 passes for 192 yards and three touchdowns.
Charlie Becker, Omar Cooper Jr. and Elijah Sarratt caught the touchdown passes. Kaelon Black ran for 99 yards, and he and Roman Hemby added fourth-quarter rushing scores.
The MVP nobody predicted
The offensive MVP award did not go to the Heisman winner. It went to center Pat Coogan, and Mendoza reportedly jumped for joy when he heard. Coogan noted it was likely the first time an offensive lineman had taken the honor.
It was a fitting choice. Indiana won this game by being more physical than Alabama for four quarters, which is not a sentence anyone would have written about a Hoosiers team in living memory.
Alabama's night ended early
Quarterback Ty Simpson cracked a rib late in the first half and was replaced by Austin Mack in the third quarter. Indiana led 17-0 at halftime. Kalen DeBoer's second season ended in the same stadium where Nick Saban's final season had ended two years before.
The Crimson Tide had arrived as the No. 9 seed after beating Oklahoma 34-24 in the first round. They finished 11-4.
The bye-week streak, broken
Indiana became the first team to advance after a first-round bye in the 12-team format. The six teams before them had all gone out in the quarterfinals, including Ohio State the night before in the Cotton Bowl and Texas Tech earlier that day in the Orange Bowl. Whatever the layoff had done to everyone else, it did not touch the Hoosiers.
The audience
The game drew 23.9 million viewers on ESPN, the most-watched non-championship game of the 12-team Playoff era. The four quarterfinals averaged 19.3 million, up 14 percent year over year.
Part of that was the Rose Bowl's standing. Part of it was Alabama. But a substantial part was that a national audience wanted to see whether Indiana was real.
What came next
The crowd in Pasadena tilted heavily Indiana and spent the final minutes chanting. The Hoosiers moved on to the Peach Bowl semifinal against Oregon, a rematch of a 30-20 Indiana win in Eugene that October, and won that 56-22.
Ten days after that they beat Miami to finish 16-0 and win the national championship. The Rose Bowl was the game where the rest of the sport stopped treating them as a novelty.
Updated October 7, 2026: An earlier version said five bye teams had been eliminated before Indiana's win; it was six. It called the game the most-watched Playoff game of the 12-team era; it was the most-watched non-championship game. It also said Ty Simpson was knocked out early in the third quarter with Indiana leading 24-0; he was hurt late in the first half and replaced in the third quarter. Blitz and fourth-quarter rushing figures we could not verify have been removed.
