Alabama
IU football game 14: Early facts, odds, projections, details vs. Alabama
Three wins to a national title.
Every game from here out is the biggest in IU football history.
In a national quarterfinal matchup, the No. 1 Hoosiers (13-0) will face No. 9 Alabama (11-3) on Thursday, Jan. 1 at 4 p.m. ET at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. (ESPN). The game marks the first ever meeting of these programs.
Indiana and Alabama could not have more different histories.
Alabama claims 18 national titles and 30 conference championships, while IU has never won a national title and can claim just three league titles. Alabama has the third-most wins in college football history, while the Hoosiers have the second-most losses.
But while the game is a historical mismatch, Indiana will take the field as the favorite.
Most sports books have IU as a 6.5 to 7-point favorite over the Crimson Tide in The Rose Bowl.
In the analytical models, ESPN’s Football Power Index gives No. 1 Indiana a 71.4% chance to beat No. 8 Alabama. ESPN’s SP+ likes No. 2 Indiana over No. 15 Alabama by 13.1 points.
Alabama played five games against teams currently ranked in the CFP Top-25: Two games against Georgia and Oklahoma, and a game against Vanderbilt. The Tide went 3-2 in those games.
FPI says Alabama played the sixth-hardest schedule this season, while IU played the 28th most difficult. Meanwhile IU has the No. 1 strength of record, and Alabama No. 10.
The lone common opponent for Indiana and Alabama is Wisconsin, a team both the Hoosiers and Crimson Tide beat on their respective home fields by 24 points.
Alabama is led by head coach Kalen DeBoer, who is in his second season in charge in Tuscaloosa. DeBoer is 20-7 in his two seasons at Alabama, and 124-19 overall as a head coach. He and former IU quarterback Michael Penix, Jr. led Washington to the national championship game in 2023.
DeBoer is one of several members of the Alabama coaching staff who were once coaches at Indiana.
DeBoer was the IU offensive coordinator in 2019. Crimson Tide quarterbacks coach Nick Sheridan was at IU from 2017-2021 and was offensive coordinator the last two years. Defensive coordinator Kane Wommack was at IU from 2018-2020 and defensive coordinator the last two years. Defensive backs coach Jason Jones was the IU safeties coach from 2020-2022. And strength coach David Ballou is an IU alumnus and was the IU strength coach from 2018-2020.
Alabama is No. 39 nationally in scoring offense, putting up 31.4 points per contest. Indiana is the nation’s No. 2 scoring defense at 10.8 points allowed per game.
The Crimson Tide are No. 13 in scoring defense, allowing just 17.9 an outing. IU is No. 4 in scoring offense at 41.9 points per contest. The most points scored by any team against Alabama this season was 31 by Florida State in a season-opening loss.
6-foot-2 junior quarterback Ty Simpson has completed 64.1 % of his throws for 3,500 yards, with 28 touchdowns and just five interceptions. Including sacks, he has rushed for just 76 yards and two touchdowns this season.
PFF grades Alabama as having the No. 31 offense, the No. 14 defense, and the No. 22 special teams in the country.
The weather shouldn’t be a factor in this game. Rain is rare in Southern California this time of year, and the temperature should be pleasant. The current long-term forecast calls for partly cloudy skies and a high of 67 degrees. We’ll check back on this as the game gets closer.
We will of course have much more on this game in the days to come.
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Welcome to BamaCentral’s “Just a Minute,” a video series featuring Alabama Crimson Tide on SI’s beat writers. Multiple times per week, the writers will group up or film solo to provide their take on a topic concerning the Crimson Tide or the landscape of college sports.
Watch the above video as BamaCentral baseball beat reporter Theodore Fernandez reflects on the first two months of Alabama baseball’s season and explains why the team has left much to be desired despite success on the field.
At face value, this has been a successful campaign for Alabama baseball. Entering the final four weeks of the regular season, a Crimson Tide team that was projected to finish No. 13 in the SEC is 9-9 in conference play, and just one game out of fourth place. The first sweep of Auburn in more than a decade, the Frisco Classic title, and a road series win over Oklahoma are big-time results that speak to the potential Alabama clearly possesses.
But it continues to appear increasingly likely that this team may not realize that potential.
There are issues up and down the roster. The bulk of the attention has been on Justin Lebron’s struggles. His career-high in errors and underwhelming offensive numbers have led to his draft stock beginning to fall, and it led to him even being experimentally moved out of the two-hole for a game against Arkansas.
Players like Luke Vaughn and Jason Torres have struggled, and there is still a significant amount of regular roster experimentation occurring on a week-to-week basis. Will Plattner, Justin Osterhouse, Chase Kroberger, Andrew Purdy and Peyton Steele are all among the players who have started games over the past two weekends and still appear to have undefined roles.
The biggest question remains the bullpen, as it is nearly impossible to predict what it will provide on any given day. There was a two-weekend stretch where it gave up just five earned runs over 22.1 combined innings against Auburn and Oklahoma, willing Alabama to wins in games where the bats did not show up. Then there have been the lows: implosions against Arkansas and Texas that cast serious doubt on the unit’s ability to show up in big moments.
In all of those areas where the team has struggled, there is hope of a turnaround. There are the bullpen’s aforementioned elite stretches. There are the web-gem plays in short by Lebron, that will leave him with one of the most impressive defensive highlight reels of any player in the nation. There’s Torres responding to a 1-for-12 weekend against the Razorbacks with a two-hit game where he drove in one of Alabama’s two runs to avoid a sweep against Texas last Sunday.
In a sport defined by randomness, where the thinnest of margins can mean the difference between going home in a regional or making a run to Omaha, we simply have no way of knowing where Alabama will land.
Would we really expect it any other way?
That’s baseball.
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A “joyful” 10-year-old Alabama girl was found dead soon after being reported missing — with another juvenile charged with her murder.
Katheryn Bigbee, 10, was reported missing just before 11 p.m. Friday, when police were called to an undisclosed address in Calhoun County, AL.com reported.
“Officers responded immediately to the residence,” Piedmont Police Chief Nathan Johnson said in a statement. “They tragically discovered a deceased juvenile inside the home.”
It remains unclear where the house was, or whether it was the young girl’s family home — but another juvenile was soon taken into custody and hit with murder charges.
Their identity and connection to Bigbee have not been disclosed due to their age.
Bigbee’s cause of death also remains unclear, with police saying the investigation was still ongoing.
“Our family has been torn to pieces, and we have lost the most amazing, sweetest little girl,” relative Blake Trammel wrote on Facebook.
“She was a light in any room she walked into. I cannot express the pain, guilt, and emptiness that has come from all of this. We don’t have answers, only more questions,” he added.
The girl’s school also recalled her as a beloved member of its community.
“Our entire Piedmont Elementary School family is grieving as we remember a sweet little girl who brought smiles, kindness, and a bright light to our halls each day,” the school said in a statement.
“Katheryn had a joyful, spunky personality that made her truly special,” the school said. “She was an enthusiastic reader and will be remembered for the happiness she shared so freely.”
“She will always be a part of our school family, and her memory will live on in the hearts of her classmates, teachers, and all who knew and loved her.”
Alabama AHSAA softball key dates and top teams approaching the 2026 playoffs originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Alabama’s AHSAA softball playoffs are just around the corner with three of the state’s top teams ranked in the national Top 15.
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The No. 5 Orange Beach [AL] Makos, No. 10 Thompson [Alabaster, AL] Warriors, and No. 15 Wetumpka [AL] Indians are all ranked in the most recent edition of the MaxPreps Top 50 with the start of Alabama’s postseason less than two weeks away.
Orange Beach was previously ranked No. 1 before losing to the South Warren [Bowling Green, KY] Spartans last week. Both teams were undefeated going into the contest, and the Barbers Hill [Mt. Belvieu, TX] Eagles took the Makos’ place at the top of the rankings following the loss.
WATCH: ALABAMA AHSAA SOFTBALL ON THE NFHS NETWORK
Key dates for the Alabama AHSAA softball playoffs
|
DATE |
PLAYOFF DEADLINES |
|
5/1-5/26 |
Area Tournaments |
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5/11-14/26 |
Regional Tournaments |
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5/18-22/26 |
State Tournaments |
National Top 50 contenders by classification
Alabama’s three nationally-ranked teams all compete in different classifications.
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Class 7A
The Thompson Warriors are 34-1-2, and they compete in the AHSAA’s top-level Class 7A ranks. The team’s only loss is to the No. 15 Wetumpka Indians in a 3-2 setback on April 3.
Class 6A
Wetumpka is 34-5, and as noted above, they are the only team to beat Thompson so far.
Class 4A
Orange Beach is the state’s top-ranked team despite competing at the AHSAA’s Class 4A level. Their loss to South Warren of Kentucky in a 6-1 setback on April 9 ended a 45-game win streak at the time. The Makos had only allowed 25 runs all season prior to the relative outburst by the Spartans.
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