Bill ConnellyJan 20, 2026, 10:13 AM ETCloseBill Connelly is a writer for ESPN. He covers college football, soccer and tennis. He has been at ESPN since 2019.Follow on X
play0:40Carson Beck’s costly INT hands Indiana the national titleMiami QB Carson Beck throws a costly interception with under a minute to go, sealing Indiana’s first college football championship.
play0:45Mark Fletcher Jr. runs for huge 57-yard TD for MiamiMiami RB Mark Fletcher Jr. breaks free for a 57-yard touchdown to give the Hurricanes some momentum.
play0:33Malachi Toney bursts for a 22-yard TD for MiamiCarson Beck flips the ball to Malachi Toney, who breaks a couple tackles on his way to the end zone.
play1:11Indiana blocks a punt for an electric TDIndiana’s Mikail Kamara blocks Miami’s punt and Isaiah Jones recovers it for a touchdown.
Indiana holds off Miami to win 1st national championship in program history (1:41)Indiana defeats Miami 27-21 to win the College Football Playoff National Championship. (1:41)
Carson Beck’s costly INT hands Indiana the national titleMiami QB Carson Beck throws a costly interception with under a minute to go, sealing Indiana’s first college football championship.
Miami QB Carson Beck throws a costly interception with under a minute to go, sealing Indiana’s first college football championship.
Mark Fletcher Jr. runs for huge 57-yard TD for MiamiMiami RB Mark Fletcher Jr. breaks free for a 57-yard touchdown to give the Hurricanes some momentum.
Miami RB Mark Fletcher Jr. breaks free for a 57-yard touchdown to give the Hurricanes some momentum.
Malachi Toney bursts for a 22-yard TD for MiamiCarson Beck flips the ball to Malachi Toney, who breaks a couple tackles on his way to the end zone.
Carson Beck flips the ball to Malachi Toney, who breaks a couple tackles on his way to the end zone.
Fernando Mendoza absorbs a hit and dives across the goal line for a touchdown on fourth down to widen Indiana’s lead.
Indiana blocks a punt for an electric TDIndiana’s Mikail Kamara blocks Miami’s punt and Isaiah Jones recovers it for a touchdown.
The most important plays of the national title game
When Miami was putting together its shocking first national title under Howard Schnellenberger in 1983, Indiana was going 3-8. The Hoosiers would go 0-11 the next season.
When Nebraska was wrapping up a second straight national title with an all-time great team in 1995, Indiana was going 2-9 with wins over only Western Michigan and Southern Miss.
When Nick Saban’s Alabama was battling LSU for national rock-fight supremacy in 2011, Indiana was picking up the pieces after a 1-11 campaign.
For virtually all of college football’s history, Indiana has been an also-ran at best. But in a sport long defined by the haves, the ultimate have-not has become its national champion. Indiana was the losingest program in the history of major college football heading into 2025, but the Hoosiers won their first title with guts, a glorious Fernando Mendoza touchdown run and a late interception from Jamari Sharpe. In this new era of college football, literally anything is possible.
Indiana’s 27-21 win over Miami in the College Football Playoff title game on Monday night locked up the least likely national title since either 1996 (the last time a team won its first national title), 1984 (when BYU won an unassuming crown) or ever. The Hoosiers became the sport’s behemoth when no one was looking, beat six top-10-at-the-time teams and took the title in the second year of the 12-team CFP.
History can turn out to be awfully poetic, but not in the way we originally envision. In 2002’s national title game, Miami’s Glenn Sharpe was flagged for a very late (but not necessarily incorrect) pass interference penalty against Ohio State in the first of two overtimes. The Buckeyes would win in double-overtime, and Miami has spent the past 23 seasons searching for some combination of justice and absolution.
Jamari Sharpe, Glenn’s nephew — and a product of Miami’s Northwestern Senior High School (didn’t have a Miami offer when he committed to Tom Allen’s IU program late in 2021) — provided that absolution … for Indiana. He intercepted an underthrown pass by Carson Beck as Miami was trying to position itself for a late, game-winning touchdown.
Carson Beck’s costly INT hands Indiana the national title
Sharpe’s pick clinched the title, but it created the latest in a series of pretty big second-half swings.
In order, here are the five biggest plays of the national title game according to win probability added.
After forcing a quick Indiana punt with a pair of sacks to start the third quarter, however, the Hurricanes got the ball back and immediately changed the game.
Mark Fletcher Jr. runs for huge 57-yard TD for Miami
Fletcher would finish with 112 rushing yards and two touchdowns on Monday night, giving him 507 rushing yards in four playoff games.
2. Malachi Toney’s 22-yard catch-and-run (6:37 left in Q4, +13.7% for Miami). Indiana still led by 10 points when Toney, having snagged a 41-yard catch-and-run out of a no-huddle attack two plays earlier, took a jet sweep to the house to keep the Hurricanes within shouting distance.
5. Mikail Kamara’s blocked punt, recovered by Isaiah Jones for a touchdown (5:04 left in Q3, +11.0% for Indiana). Indiana’s offense labored to start the second half, gaining just 11 yards in 13 third-quarter snaps. But Kamara’s perfect block, which settled nicely in the end zone for Jones to recover extended the Hoosiers’ lead back to 10 points.
Indiana’s Mikail Kamara blocks Miami’s punt and Isaiah Jones recovers it for a touchdown.
More than anything else, this touchdown bought the Hoosiers time. They outgained the Hurricanes in the first, second and fourth quarters, but they were flailing in the third (total yards: Miami 150, IU 11), and Kamara’s block assured that the Hurricanes couldn’t take full advantage of the sudden domination. IU’s offense got its footing again in the final 15 minutes.
I have enjoyed how unique the program was, with Hep’s Rock in one end zone (it’s now outside the stadium) and a full academic support facility under the Memorial Stadium stands. But it was never a program built to do this.
Cignetti has pulled off quite possibly the greatest turnaround in college football’s history — and college football has quite the lengthy history — and it remains shocking how easy he made it look. He didn’t even need to wait for steady growth and improved recruiting; he just did it with the guys he came with (or brought in within a year of his hiring).
College sports has produced an infinite number of wild and unexpected national titles, but considering the influence that football holds, and considering how much the ruling class really likes to rule this sport, this might be the biggest story in the history of college sports. Pretty much any other title-winning historic underdog remained an underdog to the end — the U.S. over the USSR. in the Miracle on Ice in 1980, Bill Snyder’s Kansas State in the late-1990s, Villanova or NC State in men’s college basketball in the mid-1980s — but Curt Cignetti’s Indiana Hoosiers became a Goliath, survived a title-game upset bid, and made history in the most unique possible way. The only thing that could have possibly topped it might have been if Gordon Hayward’s buzzer-beater for Butler had banked in against Duke in 2010.
1. Mark Fletcher Jr.’s 57-yard touchdown run (11:06 left in Q3, +15.0% for Miami). Miami trailed 10-0 after a relatively one-sided first half that included three straight Hurricane three-and-outs and a dreadful sequence of decision-making from head coach Mario Cristobal. Miami finally moved the ball late in the half, but facing a fourth-and-2 with over a minute left, Cristobal decided to let the clock run down and attempt a 50-yard field goal instead of actually trying to score real points. Kicker Carter Davis, shaky for the entire CFP, doinked it off the upright.
3-4. Fernando Mendoza’s 12-yard run on fourth down (9:18 left in Q4, +13.2% for Indiana); Charlie Becker’s 19-yard catch on fourth-and-5 (11:18 left in Q4, +11.9% for Indiana). Indiana was only 8-for-16 for the season on fourth downs heading into the title game, but the Hoosiers converted a pair of fourth downs on this game-defining drive early in the fourth quarter. Becker’s back-shoulder catch kept the drive alive, and after originally leaning toward attempting a field goal, Cignetti called timeout and put the game in Mendoza’s hands. He delivered.
A team that had to get off the mat and rally just to reach the CFP at all, did so again after halftime. The Hurricanes outgained the Hoosiers, the best team in the country, by 125 yards in the second half, and all their stars shined. Fletcher’s 57-yard burst got the party started, while Toney finished with 10 catches for 122 yards, and the pass-rush duo of Rueben Bain Jr. and Akheem Mesidor, so vital to this CFP run, finished with three sacks (all after halftime) and 4.5 tackles for loss. In 13 second-half pass attempts from Mendoza, the Heisman Trophy winner, Miami allowed just four completions and 47 net yards (including sacks).
Cristobal threw away a scoring chance at the end of the first half, and that certainly looms rather large in a six-point defeat, but he also had his team playing its best ball for most of the final 30 minutes. It just wasn’t quite enough. And Beck’s legacy as a one-year starter will end up rather conflicted: He had some fantastic moments — most notably an all-timer of a go-ahead touchdown drive to beat Ole Miss in the semifinals — but in all three of the Canes’ losses this season, their last offensive play was a Beck interception.
Miami will have an awfully different team in 2026. Losing Bain and Mesidor — not to mention punishing linebackers Mohamed Toure and Wesley Bissainthe — will mean that defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman will need to find a new center of gravity around which to build. The Canes will need to find a new quarterback, too, though it’s pretty clear who that will likely be. But Toney and Fletcher will return, and Cristobal’s recruiting success hasn’t abated. The Miami football program has reawakened, and The U is thinking big.