The humiliation in last season's Rose Bowl has served as motivation for Alabama all offseason long. Throughout spring practice and now into fall camp, Tide players are wearing towels with the Rose Bowl logo on them, a consistent reminder of how last season ended and how far Alabama needs to go to get back to national title contention.
One point the Rose Bowl hammered home completely was that Alabama had to get better on both lines of scrimmage. Indiana bullied them for four quarters, running the ball down their throat to the tune of 215 yards and holding Alabama to just 23.
The struggles to run the football were a season-long problem for the Crimson Tide. The perfect example came in Pasadena. Trailing 3-0 in the 2nd quarter and facing a 4th-and-1 from their own 34, Kalen DeBoer elected to go for it. But with zero confidence that Alabama could just line up and win at the point of attack to get the yard, Alabama tried a trick play with Daniel Hill taking a direct snap and tossing a pop pass to Germie Bernard. Indiana blew the play up, took over on downs, and scored a touchdown to go up 10-0 on the way to a blowout 38-3 win.
Curt Cignetti revisited the play recently with Rece Davis, and his commentary served as a painful reminder of what Alabama has to fix this season in order to compete with the best-of-the-best in college football:
"Coach DeBoer, he’s a great offensive coach. He’s a great football coach. Got a lot of respect for him, Cignetti said, via AL.com's Nick Kelly. "But in short yardage, they have a tendency to get a little tricky and cute sometimes. I mean, you’ve got to be ready for it. And they’ve had a lot of big plays doing that through the years. And last year. So, we were ready for those types of things.”
Kalen DeBoer has to field a more physical Alabama team in 2026
Improving the trenches on both sides of the ball was a major point of emphasis for Alabama this offseason. They feel like they made significant upgrades to the defensive front. Offensively, DeBoer brought in 11 new faces to the OL room. He also hired a new OL coach in Adrian Klemm and brought in Richard Owens to coach the tight ends, who had previously served as the OL coach at Louisville.
Ryan Grubb is bullish on the Klemm/Owens tandem and their ability to get the most out of their respective rooms, helping him to resurrect the run game.
Alabama is banking on organic improvement in the RB room from the likes of returners Daniel Hill, AK Dear, and Kevin Riley, along with freshmen EJ Crowell and Trae'shawn Brown stepping into roles in year one. It was clear from the priorities in the portal that Alabama thought the failings were more on the offensive line than the running backs.
Both certainly have to be better. There's nothing wrong with a trick play here and there in short-yardage situations to throw the defense off the scent, but it can't be your base package in those scenarios, either. Not at Alabama.
The good news is that DeBoer and his staff didn't just sit on their hands this offseason. They did something about it. Whether that something fixes the problem remains to be seen. But they tried. They've made changes that will hopefully lead to avoiding the same kind of humiliation they felt in the Rose Bowl ever again.
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