MIAMI — On one side of Monday’s national title game is the ultimate Cinderella story: Indiana was the losingest program in Division I history until this season. The Hoosiers are now one win away from an undefeated season en route to the program’s first championship.
On the other side, a Cinderella story in its own right: a Miami team that has not won a championship in nearly a quarter of a century. UM needed to sneak into the playoffs with two losses and beat two top SEC teams as well as last year’s national champions to get to Monday’s title bout, which is being played in their home stadium.
So what would it mean for these teams to hoist the championship trophy?
“It would mean we’re the national champion,” Hoosiers coach Curt Cignetti said at the coaches’ press conference on Sunday morning.
Cristobal nodded. “It would mean we’re the national champions,” he said.
Neither coach is interested in narratives or outside noise, even if everybody else is. Both coaches are locked in on preparing their respective teams to kick off at 7:30 p.m. at Hard Rock Stadium.
“I don’t think the external stuff has ever been a motivator for our team,” Cristobal said. “I think it’s always been internal. I think our guys always want to prove themselves right. And I think the confidence and the trust in each other was something that just continued to build momentum throughout the course of the season. It was a matter of just finally just looking at each other, looking in the mirror and making a commitment to work out the details to allow us to win in the margins.”
Cristobal has been asked frequently about Miami teams in the past and whether the Hurricanes are finally “back.” He never dwells on the question. He will compliment those teams, but he says this year’s UM team is different from the championship teams of the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s. He does not want to go “back.”
“It’s nostalgia theater in this country,” Cristobal said on The Kevin Clark Show in September. “Everyone wants to go back, back, back. Well, we don’t want to go back. We want to go forward and take the principles of that brand of football and we want to take it forward.”
Cristobal reiterated Sunday that the Hurricanes are not getting caught up in sentimentality as they prepare for Monday’s game.
“Everyone is uniquely special and different and has brought something different to the lives of all the people around them,” Cristobal said. “But I don’t see us getting caught up in any nostalgic moments or whatnot. I just really sense that our team was really focused, that they were really intent on carrying out the rest of the day’s processes, knowing the tremendous opportunity that we have.”
Indiana has never played on this type of stage before, and the Hoosiers are the heavy favorites. But Indiana coach Curt Cignetti is demanding his team be locked in for the game on Monday, too. He said he saw an ESPN report that his team’s players were hugging each other and exchanging kind words after practice on Friday, and while that is nice, the time for that has passed.
“I think leading up to this game there’s been a lot of pro-Indiana hype, a lot of rat poison out there,” Cignetti said. “I happened to see Holly Rowe’s thing on social media this morning about our guys hugging each other at the end of practice. It is a close team, and I witnessed quite a bit of sentimentalism throughout the week from some of our seniors who we’ve been with quite a long time.
“I think it’s time to sharpen the saw now, throw those warm fuzzies out the door, that sentimentalism. It’s time to go play a game against a great opponent. We’ve got to have a sharp edge going into this game, and you don’t go to war with warm milk and cookies.”