Alabama doesn’t boast the Heisman Trophy winner, like the program it’s about to stare down.
Bama flopped in its conference title game, unlike the team it’s about to take on.
The Crimson Tide aren’t undefeated, far from it in fact, unlike the Big Ten behemoth they’ll face on New Year’s Day at the venerable Rose Bowl.
This Tide team is flawed and fortunate to still have a shot at being called 2025 national champs as we hit 2026.
But while this is all true, so is this fact — Alabama can still absolutely win that national title on Jan. 19 in Miami. Naturally, winning 3 more games will be excruciatingly difficult, because it’s supposed to be. But it’s doable, and here are 3 big reasons why the Tide can be the last team standing:
1. Alabama is as healthy as it’s been in a long time
The Tide have dealt with a seemingly endless stream of injuries this season, but that annoying stream has pretty much stopped, at just the perfect time. And how’s this for good timing — Bama will get star defensive end LT Overton back against Indiana, and having the senior out there to chase Fernando Mendoza around all afternoon at the Rose Bowl should provide a huge lift in every way imaginable.
Overton was sorely missed in the Tide’s SEC title game dud against Georgia, and he was also forced to watch the first-round Playoff victory at Oklahoma because of an undisclosed medical issue. This is a difference-maker for Kane Wommack’s defense, with his 33 tackles, 20 of them solo, and 4 sacks this season. Yes, Bama was able to win without Overton in Norman, but having to do it again, against that Mendoza-led offensive machine, would be a tough proposition.
“I feel game-ready,” said Overton, according to ESPN’s Pete Thamel.
Running back Kevin Riley is also good to go on Thursday. The redshirt freshman has had his moments this season for the struggling Tide running game, putting up 222 yards and 2 touchdowns. His presence can only help matters after Riley missed the past 3 games because of a jaw injury suffered against Eastern Illinois the week before the Iron Bowl.
With Overton and Riley back in the lineup, Bama is as well-equipped on both sides of the ball as it’s ever going to be to knock off the favored Hoosiers. If the Tide still lose, they won’t be able to blame health.
2. An abundance of 5-star talent belies Bama’s underdog status
This crazy numerical confluence tells you all you need to know about Alabama’s weird place as a touchdown underdog against Indiana. Here it is: the Tide are the No. 9 seed in the College Football Playoff as they get ready for the quarterfinals. And they’ll line up on Thursday afternoon against IU with exactly 9 former 5-star players in their starting lineup on both sides of the football.
Crazy, right? And no doubt telling. While Bama masquerades as a flawed 3-loss team that barely got in the Playoff, which is actually exactly what the 2025 team is, the Tide are also a team overflowing with big-time talent. You know, like pretty much every Alabama football team the past few decades. This roster might have lost those 3 games, but it was also good enough to win 8 in a row, including 4 straight ranked SEC victories, which is ridiculously hard to pull off.
You don’t earn a spot in the SEC Championship Game without being really good, yet many fans will only remember how outmatched Bama looked in Atlanta against Kirby Smart‘s Bulldogs. It was ugly for sure, and that’s the real paradox of this Crimson Tide team — good enough to get to Atlanta yet flawed enough to look like it didn’t belong on the same field as Georgia. That confounding paradox is what Alabama fans have had to sit through all season, and it’s been a wild ride all the way to New Year’s Day in Pasadena.
Yet, here they are, with all that 5-star talent and every reason to believe they can win 3 more games, no matter what the point spread says.
3. A quarterback who invokes Kobe Bryant is hell-bent on winning
If your quarterback is intense enough and has enough of a sense of history to bring the great Kobe Bryant into the conversation, then you’ve really got something special. That’s exactly what Ty Simpson did during the postgame press conference after Alabama’s first-round Playoff victory at Oklahoma. At a moment when he easily could’ve basked in the glow of a road, primetime conquest of an SEC rival, with the season on the line, Simpson instead chose to look forward, to the challenges still ahead.
He was asked in that revealing press conference how it felt to silence the legion of doubters on that Friday night in Norman, with all the noise that followed Bama’s controversial Playoff berth. Simpson, the guy who picked apart his own performance even after a huge victory at Mizzou earlier this season, looking at the stat sheet and bemoaning what he didn’t do instead of what he did, remembered the late Bryant’s famous “Job’s not finished” statement after a win that helped the Lakers take a 2-0 lead in the 2009 NBA Finals.
Two wins from a title, Bryant was as stone-faced as ever. Simpson was all of 6 years old during the 2009 NBA Finals, so he either has an incredible memory or simply knows his sports history very well. Whatever it is, Simpson, the first-year starting QB who hung around the Heisman Trophy conversation for a lot of the season, knew at that moment that there was a lot more work to be done.
“What did Kobe say? We’re not done yet. That’s all I gotta say,” said Simpson as his head coach, Kalen DeBoer, smiled widely while sitting next to him.
DeBoer probably smiled because he knew at that moment what all Bama fans should know — that having a leader so laser-focused on winning surely means you’ve got a real shot at winning it all.
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