Everywhere you turn, there's another reminder of the embarrassment in Pasadena four months ago.
Alabama was completely and totally emasculated by eventual National Champion Indiana. The once big, bad bully of college football, the Crimson Tide, was manhandled for 60-minutes by the Hoosiers.
It hasn't been forgotten about, and people just can't stop talking about it.
Good.
A loss like that should continue to resonate, and the players from last year's team that remained in Tuscaloosa shouldn't forget about it. It should be used as motivation to never let it happen again.
And just in case Alabama was starting to move on and forget about it, a recent long-form article by The Athletic's Stewart Mandel brought it back to the forefront, thanks to a quote by Indiana strength coach Derek Owings, recalling something Curt Cignetti said before and during the Hoosier shellacking.
Curt Cignetii's words a painful reminder of Alabama's embarrassing loss to Indiana
“In the game day meeting at the hotel, he was like, I don’t want to do any trick plays, weird stuff,” said Owings, via Mandel. “I want to line up and beat the s—t out of them. In the second half, we started bullying those guys, and when Bama had given up, it was, I don’t really want to pass anymore. I want to run it down their throat and make a statement.”
Cignetti and Indiana certainly made a statement, racking up over 200 rushing yards and handing Alabama its worst loss in recent memory.
It's the kind of loss that left a lasting stain on an otherwise good season. It practically erased the good feeling from Alabama's come-from-behind road win over Oklahoma in the opening round of the College Football Playoff. It left a lot of fans to really ponder whether Kalen DeBoer was the right man for the job or not.
Of course, what Indiana did next has largely been ignored. The Hoosiers beat Oregon in the CFP semifinals just as badly as they defeated the Crimson Tide, but there were a lot fewer op-eds about the future of the Ducks.
But such is the burden of playing for, coaching, or rooting for Alabama. Everything is amplified. Especially the warts.
All DeBoer and the Crimson Tide can do is learn and grow from it. The sting of the Rose Bowl won't go away. Alabama has to wear it like a scarlet letter forever. But it might be the thing that allows the DeBoer era to turn a corner.
Last season's playoff bid hid a lot of flaws that may have been ignored this offseason had it not been for the Rose Bowl beatdown. But the five-touchdown defeat left no room for ambiguity. Alabama needed to change, particularly in the trenches. And it did.
Whether that will lead to different results or not remains to be seen, but the Crimson Tide certainly didn't sit on its hands after getting punched in the mouth.
They are trying to fight back.
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