It’s something many college football fans never thought they’d see: The Indiana Hoosiers are college football’s national champions.
The Hoosiers have long been considered a basketball school and Indiana is known as a basketball-mad portion of the country. No longer. The 2025-26 Indiana Hoosiers on Monday wrote themselves into college football history by pulling off the first 16-0 season in the modern era, defeating the University of Miami in the College Football Playoff national championship game by a score of 27-21.
The game started off slow – the Hoosiers and Hurricanes traded defensive stands in the first half, with Fernando Mendoza leading his team on two scoring drives to make it 10-0 at halftime.
The game exploded into life in the second half as Miami’s Mark Fletcher Jr. broke free for a 57-yard touchdown run that brought Miami within a score of the Hoosiers. IU answered that score a few drives later with one of the turning points of the game.
As it felt like Miami was seizing control of the contest with its pressure on Mendoza, the Hoosiers broke through the Hurricanes’ punt team with Mikail Kamara blocking Dylan Joyce’s punt. Isaiah Jones jumped on the loose ball in the end zone as the Hoosiers regained the 10-point lead to go up 17-7.
Miami refused to back down and got an electric fourth quarter started with another Fletcher touchdown, cutting the Indiana lead again to just three points.
What came next will live long in Hoosier lore.
Mendoza led his team down the field – coming up huge in clutch moments.
First, it was a fourth-and-5 pass to wide receiver Charlie Becker for 19 yards that kept the drive going. Then, facing another fourth down at the Miami 12-yard line, Mendoza kept the ball on a designed quarterback run.
While taking contact, he made his way past the first-down marker and strived for more. He shrugged off a couple of hits and lunged for the goal line, taking a massive blow to the back in the process. But he got over the goal line, scoring the touchdown that would eventually seal the win.
FERNANDO. MENDOZA.
THE PLAY OF A LIFETIME ‼️ pic.twitter.com/g3o5nNNslr
— ESPN (@espn) January 20, 2026
As they had all day, Miami answered, going back down the field and scoring a touchdown on Malachi Toney’s 22-yard touchdown drive. But Indiana scored the game’s final points on the next drive, kicking a field goal to go up 27-21.
Miami quarterback Carson Beck and the Hurricanes’ offense had one last chance to score a touchdown that would break Hoosier hearts and snatch the title for the Canes, but the drive ended on a deep pass that was intercepted by Indiana’s Jamari Sharpe.
The turnover sealed the game and the remarkable title for the Hoosiers. An impossible dream come true in South Florida.
