You'll hear it a lot in the lead-up to the Rose Bowl because it's true: Indiana doesn't make many mistakes. The Hoosiers are No. 1 in the country in turnover margin, a key statistic that has helped the Hoosiers get to 13-0 and capture the Big Ten Championship.
Alabama defensive coordinator Kane Wommack knows one of the keys to the Rose Bowl will be takeaways, and he's confident in his safety duo's ability to make some plays and force Heisman Trophy-winning QB Fernando Mendoza into rare mistakes.
Bray Hubbard and Keon Sabb are as good a duo as there is in the country on the back end of the Tide's defense. Both have ballhawking tendencies, and if Alabama can manufacture a pass rush against Indiana, Hubbard and Sabb may be able to bait Mendoza into a turnover or two that swings the game in Alabama's favor.
"As a tandem and a duo, I think they're playing at a really high level," Wommack said about Hubbard and Sabb on Sunday. "One that I think they have a mindset to take the ball away. They do a great job of communicating on the back end. A large part of it is just being in the right place at the right time, and those guys get us in the right place at the right time."
Alabama's defense will present a great challenge for Fernando Mendoza
The Indiana QB has had a terrific year. He's third in the country in QBR, and he captured Indiana's first Heisman Trophy in leading the Hoosiers to the best season in school history. But he's hardly infallible.
As good as Mendoza has been, he hasn't exactly set the world on fire against the better defenses Indiana has run into. In four games against Iowa, Oregon, Penn State, and Ohio State - the four best defenses in SP+ that Indiana has faced this season - Mendoza's numbers are rather pedestrian:
62.6 CMP%, 222 yards per game, 5 TDs, 4 INTs
Four of Mendoza's six interceptions on the season came in those four games. As an offense, the Hoosiers put up an average of just 22.5 points per game in that stretch, significantly down from the 41.9 points per game they averaged this year.
Alabama ranks 9th in defensive SP+, and as much talk as there has always been about Kalen DeBoer's offensive scheme, it has been the Crimson Tide's defense that has carried them this season through offensive inconsistencies.
That could be the case again in the Rose Bowl. And at the forefront of it may be Hubbard and Sabb, who could turn the game on its head if they can force Mendoza into a mistake or two. He's been prone to giving the ball away at least once against the better defenses Indiana has faced, and in a game that should be tight, winning the turnover margin would go a long way toward an Alabama upset win.