Paul Finebaum, the ESPN analyst who strongly advocated for Alabama’s inclusion in the College Football Playoff (CFP), called the Crimson Tide “soft” after the program suffered its worst postseason defeat in history at the hands of Indiana on Thursday.
Alabama was thoroughly beaten 38-3, as the Hoosiers did pretty much whatever they wanted on offense and defense, at the CFP Quarterfinals at the Rose Bowl.
Finebaum was aghast at how outclassed the Tide looked against Indiana.
“If you just walked in from lunch yesterday and watched this game, you thought the team that was beating down Alabama was Alabama under Nick Saban,” Finebaum said.
“They played just like a Nick Saban team,” he added. “They beat you to death and made you give up, and that’s what happened. That’s why everybody in Alabama this morning is beside themselves because their team looked soft. Their coach looked soft, and their program looked soft. That is unprecedented territory for Alabama.”
While it may be unprecedented, it certainly wasn’t unpredictable.
Alabama lost two of its final four games. Including a home loss to an Oklahoma team with serious issues on offense and a 28-7 beatdown by Georgia in the SEC Conference Championship Game. A contest in which Alabama ran for -3 yards.
In addition, the Tide barely survived a 5-win Auburn team with an interim head coach.
In the lead-up to the playoffs, Finebaum disregarded Alabama’s late-season struggles and its two-score loss to unranked Florida State at the beginning of the season to make the case for Alabama. In early December, Finebaum said Alabama “should be a lock” for the CFP for merely “getting to the SEC Championship Game.”
That kind of reverence for the SEC and its championship game has not been borne out this bowl season, as SEC teams are a combined 4-8, with two of those wins coming in games where both teams were from the SEC, and another, a first-round win over a G5 school in Tulane.