Football
TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— Ty Simpson was there the last time Alabama football found itself in the Rose Bowl, as the No. 4 seed in the College Football Playoff squaring off with No. 1 Michigan. It’s a situation he will be in again on Jan. 1 when the No. 9 Crimson Tide (11-3) faces No. 1 Indiana (13-0) in the national quarterfinals with its season on the line.
Alabama had won 11 games in a row going into that matchup on Jan. 1, 2024. Less than a month had passed since the end of Georgia’s 29-game winning streak in the 2023 SEC Championship Game at the Crimson Tide’s hands. That victory got Alabama into the final four-team College Football Playoff. A hot start against the Wolverines followed, a start Simpson hasn’t forgotten.
“Growing up, playing in the Rose Bowl, it’s a dream come true. It’s such an honor because of the big-time game and the implications,” Simpson said on Saturday. “I was talking to [former Alabama cornerbacks] Terrion [Arnold] and Patrick Surtain on their podcast about this game, and just remembering, one, how it started. I think Caleb [Downs] got a pick, or something like that, something to where the momentum had shifted.”
Early moments gave way to a 27-20 overtime loss for the Crimson Tide in what turned out to be Nick Saban’s final game as the school’s head coach. Eleven days later, the man whose Washington Huskies the Wolverines went on to beat for the national title would be named the next Alabama coach. In year two at the helm, Kalen DeBoer has the program in Pasadena again with Simpson as the starting quarterback.
“There were just key plays in the game to where we could’ve put the game away, but we didn’t,” Simpson said. “I remember that last play, and [us] getting stopped, and how Michigan rushed the field, and how we felt in the locker room. And just telling myself, ‘Hey, if we ever got [to] this place again, making sure that I do everything I can to make sure we don’t feel that way.'”
Now a redshirt junior, Simpson threw for 232 yards and two touchdowns in the first round of this season’s College Football Playoff against Oklahoma. He has 3,500 yards through the air in 2025, accompanied by 28 touchdowns and five interceptions. Rose Bowl or not, there’s little room for error against a top-ranked unbeaten, which Indiana is and 2023 Michigan was.
“That’s kinda the mindset going in, of making sure that I’m crossing every ‘T’ and dotting every ‘I’ of, I’m doing what I can to prepare like I’ve never won and perform like I’ve never lost,” Simpson said.
The Crimson Tide signal caller isn’t the only one whose in-game memories of the Rose Bowl aren’t the fondest. Running back Jam Miller, a senior who arrived in the same recruiting class as Simpson, played in that contest against Michigan and shares his quarterback’s desire to come out of this upcoming opportunity on the winning side.
“That was a bad feeling,” Miller said Saturday. “Everything happen[s] for a reason, and now we get a second chance… Everybody [has to] go out there and just do everything 110 percent instead of 100 percent. We just gotta beat our opponent at the end of the day.”
Making up for past losses has been one of the storylines of the season for this Alabama team. It had regular season games against all three teams that handed the Crimson Tide losses in DeBoer’s first year as coach (and went 2-1 in those matchups). A chance at redemption from the 2024 Rose Bowl is now on the horizon. Kickoff is scheduled for 3 p.m. CT on New Year’s Day.
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