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)
To understand just how improbable Indiana’s 16-0 season was, punctuated by its gritty 27-21 win against Miami in front of a crowd of 67,227 — the majority clad in cream and crimson — a history lesson is required. Indiana football had lost 715 games — the second most in FBS history, just one behind Northwestern.
“Are there eight first-round draft choices on this team? Probably not, no, there aren’t,” Cignetti said after the win. “But this team, the whole was greater than the sum of its parts.”
That includes the Hoosiers’ Heisman Trophy winner, Fernando Mendoza, who willed himself 12 yards into the end zone on fourth-and-4 with 9:18 left to give the Hoosiers a 24-14 lead.
“At that point I took the drop,” said Mendoza, who completed 16 of 27 attempts for 186 yards but no passing touchdowns. “It wasn’t the perfect coverage for it, but I trust my linemen, and everybody in that entire offense, that entire team had a gritty performance today. And we were all putting our bodies on the line, so it was the least I could do for my brothers.”
The last player to win the Heisman Trophy and national championship in the same season was Alabama receiver DeVonta Smith in 2020. And yet Indiana’s 12-play, 75-yard drive ended with a jaw-dropping, fourth-down touchdown run by a Hoosier from Miami who was never recruited by the Canes.
Mendoza was hardly alone. Indiana’s national championship roster included eight 4- or 5-star players, while Miami boasted 45 who earned 4- or 5-star rankings out of high school. For four quarters, they went toe-to-toe on the sport’s greatest stage, a showdown of two teams that were long shots to get here — let alone win it all.
Cignetti now has an FBS-best 27-2 record over the past two seasons after Indiana went 9-27 in its final three seasons before he was hired. He has led the Hoosiers to their first two 10-win seasons in program history. Indiana joined the 1894 Yale team as the only ones in major college football history to finish 16-0 — a feat Cignetti said “a lot of people thought was never possible.”
“It probably is one of the greatest sports stories of all time,” he said, “but it’s all because of these guys and the staff.”
In such a tight game, the Hoosiers needed more than another Heisman moment from Mendoza to accomplish the feat. With 44 seconds left, Miami quarterback Carson Beck was intercepted by Jamari Sharpe to stifle the Canes’ final attempt at a comeback.
“It’s the right place to go with the ball,” Miami coach Mario Cristobal said. “Just got to be a little bit further and a little bit farther outside. We didn’t connect on it, and turnover.”
With 5:04 left in the third quarter, Indiana defensive lineman Mikail Kamara blocked a punt with his left hand and linebacker Isaiah Jones recovered the ball in the end zone for a touchdown, giving the Hoosiers a 17-7 lead. It was the first blocked punt to result in a touchdown in the CFP era, and Beck reacted by putting both of his hands on his helmet in disbelief and frustration.
Indiana led wire to wire — but not in dominant fashion as it had all season. The Hoosiers entered Monday night having outscored opponents by 473 points this season, which tied with 2019 Clemson for the most entering the national championship game in CFP history.
With 6:37 left, Miami closed the gap to 24-21 with an eight-play, 91-yard drive that ended with a 22-yard touchdown pass from Beck to Malachi Toney. The Canes were constantly within reach but could never take the lead — or stop enough of the Hoosiers’ explosive, timely plays.
A 57-yard touchdown run for Fletcher with 11:06 left in the third quarter closed the gap to 10-7. The Canes, who survived six lead changes in the Fiesta Bowl win against Ole Miss, needed only two plays and 47 seconds to score, and the Hoosiers came up empty on the following possession.
As Mendoza took his seat on the bench after a 12-play drive that ended in a 34-yard field goal and a 3-0 lead, he pressed a white towel to his bloody lip. He had been hammered from his blind side earlier in the drive, and Miami’s defense was aggressive early.
Cignetti took issue with the officiating on that drive, saying after the game there should have been two roughing the quarterback penalties and one high hit to the head that weren’t called.
Miami defensive end Rueben Bain Jr., though, the No. 13 player in Mel Kiper Jr.’s latest Big Board ranking, made one critical mistake when he jumped offside on a third-and-13 situation at midfield in the second quarter. On the following play, Kaelon Black rushed up the middle for a 20-yard gain and a first down at the Miami 23-yard line.
For Miami, penalties have been an issue all season. The Hurricanes entered Monday night averaging seven penalties accepted against them per game, which is 104th in the FBS.
Including that touchdown, the Hoosiers scored 198 points in the second quarter, the most of any FBS team in any quarter this season. For all of the attention on Mendoza, though, the defense was equally as impressive in the first half, holding Miami to 69 yards, the fewest by a team in the first half of a CFP championship game.
Indiana’s win was also a victory for the Big Ten, as it was the first time since 1940-42 (Minnesota in ’40, ’41, and Ohio State in ’42) that the Big Ten won three straight national titles (AP and Coaches Poll titles only).
“They’re mature, they’re older,” Cristobal said. “They understand how to leverage the ball, communicate really well. They certainly had a really good first half against us. A lot of credit to them. I thought in the second half we were starting to generate a lot of yards and points and whatnot and felt at the end we were generating some good chunk plays and then credit to them. They came up with a big play right there where it counted at the end. But they’re a very well-coached operation, very high-end players. I know that sometimes we lose sight of the fact that guys develop. They’ve been developed well both at James Madison and here, and credit to them. They won the game.”
“I know Indiana’s football history has been pretty poor with some good years sprinkled in there,” Cignetti said. “It was because it wasn’t an emphasis on football, plain and simple. Basketball school. Coach [Bob] Knight had great teams. The emphasis is on football. It’s on basketball, too. But you’ve got to be good in football nowadays. We’ve got a president that comes from the South that loves football. We’ve got an AD that is a tremendous fundraiser, people person. We’ve got a fan base, the largest alumni base in the country, Indiana University. They’re all in.
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)
“I’m all for letting them play,” he said, “but when they cross the line, you’ve got to call them.”
But there was one call that changed the game early.
Indiana defeats Miami 27-21 to win the College Football Playoff National Championship. (1:41)