PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — The next stop on No. 1 Indiana's storybook journey to the top of college football is nothing less than the most fabled bowl venue in the sport.
The Big Ten champion Hoosiers (13-0) are headed to their first Rose Bowl in 58 years to face Oklahoma or Alabama on New Year's Day, marking another remarkable milestone in their transformation under coach Curt Cignetti.
Indiana secured the No. 1 seed in the CFP and formally received its invitation Sunday to the 112th edition of the Granddaddy of Them All, which doubles as a College Football Playoff quarterfinal. The Hoosiers will learn the identity of their blue-blood opponent after the eighth-seeded Sooners (10-2) host the ninth-seeded Crimson Tide (10-3) on Dec. 19 in a rematch of Oklahoma’s 23-21 victory over Alabama last month.
“We’ve got a long time to prepare, and two heavyweight teams are going to slug it out, and we’ll find out on the 19th who our opponent will be," Cignetti said.
The announcement capped a monumental weekend for Indiana, which won its first Big Ten title since 1967 by beating defending national champion Ohio State 13-10 on Saturday night. The Hoosiers then ascended to the No. 1 spot in the AP Top 25 for the first time.
“Obviously it’s the Granddaddy of Them All, with a lot of great tradition involving the Big Ten, so we’re excited about that,” Cignetti said. “But at the end of the day it’s a football game, and we’ll approach it like every other game, including last night’s game. We’ll be looking forward to getting out there.”
Indiana is headed to the Rose Bowl for only the second time. The Hoosiers’ previous Big Ten championship team was in Pasadena on Jan. 1, 1968, but lost 14-3 to national champion Southern California.
The current Hoosiers, led by Heisman Trophy candidate quarterback Fernando Mendoza, have reached unprecedented heights ever since the miracle-working Cignetti took over what was once the losingest program in the sport. His teams have produced the first two double-digit win seasons in school history in his first two years on campus.
Indiana made the playoff as the 10th seed last season, going 11-1 with only a road loss to Ohio State. The Hoosiers traveled to Notre Dame for the opening round and lost 27-17 in a highly anticipated in-state matchup.
“If you use failure properly, you’re going to come back stronger,” Cignetti said of that game.
While the Hoosiers haven't played in the Rose Bowl game in generations, many members of the current team visited the famed Arroyo Seco in September 2024. Indiana trounced UCLA 42-13 at the Rose Bowl in the first road game of Cignetti's tenure, producing the first attention-grabbing result in what has grown into one of the most incredible success stories in college football history.
Cignetti also went to Pasadena when he was Nick Saban's wide receivers coach at Alabama. The Crimson Tide won their first national championship under Saban on Jan. 7, 2010, by beating Texas 37-21 at the Rose Bowl to complete a 14-0 season.
The top seed has won four of the last six CFP titles, but Cignetti isn't thinking beyond Indiana's historic trip to Pasadena. The Hoosiers have never faced Alabama in both programs' long histories, while the Hoosiers and the Sooners have met just once — back in 1928.
Oklahoma earned the right to host a first-round matchup in its first CFP appearance under coach Brent Venables. He had two losing records in his first three seasons after replacing Lincoln Riley, whose Sooners made four straight CFP appearances.
“I know for some people, the debate has been ... maybe we don’t belong in the playoffs,” Venables said. “But we’re here. I know a lot of teams were hoping they got matched up with Oklahoma potentially in the playoffs. Our focus, our energy, our detail is to be able to play for a championship, no matter how crazy that might seem to everybody else. Our team believes we have everything we need to do so.”
After losing to sixth-seeded Ole Miss at home on Oct. 25, the Sooners won their final four games, beating three ranked teams — including the Crimson Tide, who gave up 17 points off three turnovers in Norman while outgaining the Sooners 406-212.
“We didn’t take care of the ball the way we normally do, and we lost the turnover margin,” Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer told ESPN on Sunday. “That’s a credit to them. We missed on a couple of opportunities that really could have changed the outcome in a two-point loss.”
After missing the playoff last season in DeBoer's first year in charge, Alabama secured the No. 9 CFP seed despite its three losses, including a 28-7 setback to Georgia in the SEC championship game. The Crimson Tide got in based on its strength of schedule to help overcome its three losses including the season-opener to a Florida State team that finished 5-7.
“This is what you’re looking for,” DeBoer said. “This is what you want, and this is what our guys worked so hard for.”
AP college football: https://apnews.com/college-football
Alabama head coach Kalen Deboer speaks to an official during the first half of a Southeastern Conference championship NCAA college football game between Georgia and Alabama, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Oklahoma head coach Brent Venables celebrates with linebacker Kip Lewis (10) after defeating LSU during an NCAA college football game Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025, in Norman, Okla. (AP Photo/Alonzo Adams)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — President Donald Trump on Sunday claimed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “hasn’t read” a U.S-authored peace proposal aimed at ending the Russia-Ukraine war.
Trump was critical of Zelenskyy after U.S. and Ukrainian negotiators completed three days of talks on Saturday aimed at trying to narrow differences on the U.S. administration’s proposal. But in an exchange with reporters on Sunday night, Trump suggested that the Ukrainian leader is holding up the talks from moving forward.
“I’m a little bit disappointed that President Zelenskyy hasn’t yet read the proposal, that was as of a few hours ago. His people love it. But he hasn’t — Russia’s fine with it,” Trump told reporters on the red carpet at the Kennedy Center Honors. “Russia is, I believe, fine with it, but I’m not sure that Zelenskyy’s fine with it. His people love it, but he hasn’t read it.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin also hasn’t publicly expressed approval for the White House plan. In fact, Putin last week had said that aspects of Trump’s proposal were unworkable, even though the original draft heavily favored Moscow.
Trump has had a hot-and-cold relationship with Zelenskyy since riding into a second White House term insisting that the war was a waste of U.S. taxpayer money. Trump has also repeatedly urged the Ukrainians to cede land to Russia to bring an end to a now nearly four-year conflict he says has cost far too many lives.
Zelenskyy said Saturday he had a “substantive phone call” with the American officials engaged in the talks with a Ukrainian delegation in Florida. He said he had been given an update over the phone by U.S. and Ukrainian officials at the talks.
“Ukraine is determined to keep working in good faith with the American side to genuinely achieve peace,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media.
Trump’s criticism of Zelenskyy came as Russia on Sunday welcomed the Trump administration’s new national security strategy in comments by the Kremlin spokesman published by Russia’s Tass news agency.
Dmitry Peskov said the updated strategic document, which spells out the administration’s core foreign policy interests, was largely in line with Moscow’s vision.
“There are statements there against confrontation and in favor of dialogue and building good relations,” he said, adding that Russia hopes this would lead to “further constructive cooperation with Washington on the Ukrainian settlement.”
The document released Friday by the White House said the U.S. wants to improve its relationship with Russia after years of Moscow being treated as a global pariah and that ending the war is a core U.S. interest to “reestablish strategic stability with Russia.”
Speaking on Saturday at the Reagan National Defense Forum, Trump’s outgoing Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, said efforts to end the war were in “the last 10 meters.”
He said a deal depended on the two outstanding issues of “terrain, primarily the Donbas,” and the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
Russia controls most of Donbas, its name for the Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk regions, which, along with two southern regions, it illegally annexed three years ago. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is in an area that has been under Russian control since early in Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and is not in service. It needs reliable power to cool its six shutdown reactors and spent fuel, to avoid any catastrophic nuclear incidents.
Kellogg, who is due to leave his post in January, was not present at the talks in Florida.
Separately, officials said the leaders of the United Kingdom, France and Germany would participate in a meeting with Zelenskyy in London on Monday.
As the three days of talks wrapped up, Russian missile, drone and shelling attacks overnight and Sunday killed at least four people in Ukraine.
A man was killed in a drone attack on Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv region Saturday night, local officials said, while a combined missile and drone attack on infrastructure in the central city of Kremenchuk caused power and water outages. Kremenchuk is home to one of Ukraine’s biggest oil refineries and is an industrial hub.
Kyiv and its Western allies say Russia is trying to cripple the Ukrainian power grid and deny civilians access to heat, light and running water for a fourth consecutive winter, in what Ukrainian officials call “weaponizing” the cold.
Three people were killed and 10 others wounded Sunday in shelling by Russian troops in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, according to the regional prosecutor’s office.
This story was first published on Dec. 7, 2025. It was updated on Dec. 8, 2025 to correct that Trump said Zelenskyy hadn’t read the latest proposal, rather than that he wasn’t ready to accept it.
AP writers Darlene Superville and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed reporting.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
President Donald Trump talks to the media while walking the red carpet before the 48th Kennedy Center Honors, Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025, at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
FILE- Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov attends a Kyrgyzstan-Russia talk at the Administrative complex Yntymak-Manas Ordo, in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Nov. 26, 2025. (Alexander Kazakov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)
In this photo provided by Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade press service, a soldier tests land drones in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025, (Andriy Andriyenko/Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade via AP)
In this photo, provided by Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade press service, a soldier tests land drones in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025, (Andriy Andriyenko/Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade via AP)
