We didn’t see this coming. We never thought it would be this bad for the place where “It Just Means More…” More what? More butt-whuppins?

Looking at the teams representing the Southeastern Conference in post-season college football, be it bowl games or playoff games, the one team the SEC needs to thank right now is Ole Miss. The Rebels have 2 of the league’s 4 victories so far in the new year. Bama beat Oklahoma in the playoff too in an SEC v. SEC playoff game. Traditional bowl games? The SEC is 1-5. The total win – loss tally for the SEC in the post season is 4-9. Texas beat Michigan in the Citrus Bowl. Way to go Arch! Glad to see Michigan go down.

If there were two great reasons to attend The Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day, those reasons would be having the opportunity to see Indiana fans take over The Rose Bowl Stadium, I have heard the crowd was 80 percent IU fans. More there for this one than we can fit into IU’s Memorial Stadium. The other reason would be to see SEC Network pundit Paul Finebaum made out to be a donkey.

For Paul Finebaum to be made to look like a donkey, Indiana would have to pummel the Alabama Crimson Tide in The Rose Bowl. Mission accomplished. Indiana pummeled Alabama 38-3. The game didn’t seem that close. Indiana outgained Alabama 407 yards to 193.

Don’t worry SEC faithful. Call Paul. Paul will still have an excuse to help you believe this Indiana beatdown was just an apparition. We must not forget Barry Krauss and Jeff Rutledge and Ozzie Newsome. Bama’s life is not in the here and now. Walking down Rosemont Avenue before the clearing that leads to the palace that is The Rose Bowl Stadium, I heard an Alabama faithful yell, “Roll Tide! We got this. We got Coach Bryant! The Bear is looking down on us! Indiana is going down!” I swear I have heard that guy’s voice on the Paul Finebaum Show.

The last game Coach Bryant coached was on December 29, 1982. That game was a victory over Illinois in The Liberty Bowl in Memphis. Bear Bryant is not here to help you anymore, Bama. Nick Saban is not around. You don’t have Devonta, A.J., or Najee to help you anymore.

Just like the Paul Finebaum types who had a field day running down Coach Ray Perkins after he was the poor guy named to replace Bear Bryant -not that Perkins was the most affable guy- Coach Kalen DeBoer has been given the inauspicious distinction of following Nick Saban as the head coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide. You know how this movie goes, even in times of change. Especially in times of change. Tuscaloosa is not exactly the embodiment of change.

Going into The Rose Bowl, Paul Finebaum said Indiana was the team that had more pressure on them than the Alabama Crimson Tide. Had I been dipping snuff at the time, I would have swallowed it. Maybe that is what has to be said on the SEC Network.

In reality, it goes like this: If Indiana gets beat by Alabama, that is the natural order of things. Of course we beat the Hoosiers in football. Indiana plays in The Big Ten. They don’t play in the SEC. We’d beat them with cornstalks if that was the game. We’ve got the talent. Indiana isn’t worthy enough to take the field with the Alabama Crimson Tide. We’ll take the Hoosiers to school with one hand behind our back.

You get the idea. This ideology is just as misguided and elitist and as snobbish as it sounds. Most of the Bama football faithful are football snobs. Ask any Ole Miss fan. They’ll tell you.

No. The pressure was really on the Alabama Crimson Tide heading into The Rose Bowl. What if the unthinkable happens? What if the unspoken happens? What if Indiana kicks Alabama’s tail up and down the field and doesn’t even allow a Bama player the courtesy he rightly deserves and that is to score a Tide touchdown?

The unthinkable happened. The unspoken happened. In the process, the Alabama fans that actually made it to The Rose Bowl were silenced. I never heard a “Roll Tide!” Bama fans were sorry they showed up. They were thinking about how smart their friends were back home in Dallas County or Orange Beach or Hoover or fill in the blank. The Bama silence was worth getting my ticket scanned, as I walked into The Rose Bowl. The final score was Indiana 38 Alabama 3. The Hoosiers held the Crimson Tide to 193 yards of total offense; the fewest Bama has gained in a game since a win over Tulane in 2008. There was no blaming this one on the refs. In the process, lowly Indiana, that basketball school, proved what most of us who are not Alabama fans or affiliated with ESPN which feeds and waters and takes care of the SEC Network, knew all along. Putting a 3 loss Alabama team that couldn’t gain a yard rushing in their SEC Championship Game in the College Football Playoff made about as much sense as putting in an 8-5 Duke team that actually won their conference.

Am I glad Indiana had the opportunity to expose the SEC bias that is trying to offset so many other changes in college football beyond traditional control? Yes. Yes, I am. Not a football fan worth his or her reality thought Alabama had a chance to beat Indiana, providing he or she had actually taken the time to look at Indiana and what they have accomplished this season after the great season they had last year. The Hoosiers are 14-0 this year and 25-2 so far in the Coach Curt Cignetti’s two-year tenure.

The Hoosiers still have some work to do. As the highest ranked CFP team, they are designated as the home team and will wear their crimson jerseys. In Coach Cig’s time, the Hoosiers are 16-0 in crimson and have outscored their opponents 757 to 188. Ask Alabama. They know.

Know this. Neither my rant here nor the Hoosiers taking the Tide to school will have any sort of lasting effect on Paul Finebaum or the Tide fans. I get it. The Tide fans will still know more about football than the rest of us, thanks to Bear Bryant and Nick Saban. And Paul Finebaum, whose professional forte is akin to playing the part of a Mid-South Wrestling manager to his stable of growling callers be they from Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Ohio, or Baton Rouge, will still be sitting there smiling with his callers. Paul will find a way to keep them stirred up and keep them believing the SEC is the standard bearer and purveyor of football truth no matter how many bowl games the SEC teams lose or how pathetic Alabama looked against lowly Indiana when they lost The Rose Bowl 38-3.

There is a postscript here. As much as I enjoy what is happening in Bloomington, I worry about the Hoosiers’ ability to beat Oregon, Indiana’s opponent in the semi-final, twice in one season. I worry even more about the Hoosiers having to face the Ole Miss Rebels in the CFP Championship Game, should they both get there. I root for the Rebels. I’m not an SEC hater, understand. I’m a football realist. Enough of a realist to argue with myself when I start to doubt the Hoosiers. In their crimson jerseys, Indiana is hard to rationally argue about, no matter how lowly and nascent Indiana Hoosier Football may be.