MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Cigar smoke wafted through the Indiana locker room, which had turned into a club, with the Hoosiers doing all manner of dancing and “Take Over Your Trap” pounding out of enormous speakers.
From audacious upstart to unbeaten national champion, Curt Cignetti and the No. 1 Indiana Hoosiers completed their meteoric rise to the top of college football Monday night.
“Don’t put no limitations on us,” Indiana receiver Elijah Sarratt said. “Indiana just isn’t little ol’ Indiana anymore.”
Quarterback Fernando Mendoza and the Hoosiers took No. 10 Miami’s best shots and beat the Hurricanes on their home field 27-21 — taking over their trap, just like the song says — in the College Football Playoff championship game.
Indiana began this season as the losingest major program in the history of college football and ended it with the school’s first national championship, capping a remarkable two-year turnaround by Cignetti. Indiana is the first team in modern college football to finish a season 16-0 and the first first-time national title winner since Florida in 1996. The Hoosiers are the third consecutive Big Ten team to win a national title, following Michigan and Ohio State, but maybe the most unlikely champion in the history of the sport.
“Let me tell ya: We won the national championship at Indiana University. It can be done,” said Cignetti, the curmudgeonly 64-year-old who told fans to Google his record when he arrived and promised he would finally bring a winning program to Bloomington, Ind.
Mendoza, playing about a half-hour drive from his high school, was bloodied and bounced around by the Hurricanes’ ferocious pass rush, but showed the unflappable poise that helped make him Indiana’s first Heisman winner.
“Fernando, he’s the toughest kid I know,” tight end Riley Nowakowski said.
Never more than on fourth-and-4 from the Miami 12 with 9:27 left in the fourth quarter. Holding a 17-14 lead but mostly getting outplayed in the second half by the Hurricanes (13-3), Cignetti took a timeout to ponder kick or go.
“(Cignetti) said, ‘we’re going for it. So sit in there and do your job,” tackle Carter Smith said.
The Hoosiers went for it, and Mendoza darted through traffic for the first down with a quarterback draw before pinballing off tacklers and lunging past the goal line for the touchdown and a 24-14 lead. Mendoza took a shoulder in the back while reaching for the end zone and got up slowly with some help from his friends.
“That kid will walk through hell and back for this team,” Smith said.
Miami’s response was an eight-play, 91-yard drive, with fabulous freshman Malachi Toney electrifying the home fans with a 41-yard reception and 22-yard touchdown catch and run that made it 24-21 with 6:37 left in regulation.
In a season defined by newfound parity in college football, a championship game that no one would have predicted before the season turned out to be a classic.
Needing one more drive to finally put the Hurricanes away, Mendoza converted two third downs, the second on a 19-yard, back-shoulder throw to sophomore breakout wideout Charlie Becker that put the Hoosiers at the Miami 33. Miami stiffened, and Nico Radicic knocked home a 35-yard field goal to make it 27-21 with 1:42 to play.
Mendoza finished 16 of 27 for 186 yards, and Becker caught four passes for 65 yards.
The Hurricanes made it to the championship game with a last-minute, go-ahead touchdown run by Carson Beck against Ole Miss in the semifinals. Beck would have had to do it again to earn Miami its sixth national championship and first since 2001. To truly bring “The U” back.
A roughing the passer call on IU’s Mario Landino gave Miami a boost to start the drive, but there was no more magic left for Beck and the Hurricanes.
On first-and-10 from the Indiana 41 with 51 seconds left, Beck dropped back and looked deep for Keelan Marion, but Jamari Sharpe picked off the pass. All Mendoza needed to do was take a knee twice to set off the confetti cannons, setting off a storm of Indiana cream and crimson in Hard Rock Stadium.
Moments later, Indiana fans got to serenade their hero as Abba’s “Fernando” blared.
Before the game, the vibe on the Miami sideline felt a little bit like a party, with rapper Fat Joe and DJ Khaled holding court in their Hurricanes gear. Secretary of State Marco Rubio flashed the “U” hand signal and chatted with former Hurricanes national championship quarterback Bernie Kosar.
Crowds gathered around Miami legends Michael Irvin and Ed Reed as they joined ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith for what could have been an impromptu episode of “First Take.” President Donald Trump arrived just before kickoff and took in the game from a suite.
It was a championship game that brought back memories of Orange Bowls past, with Miami in position to win a national championship on its home field against a Midwest foe. Back in the day, it was usually Tom Osborne’s Nebraska teams standing in the way.
Indiana fans, who packed yet another stadium for a Playoff game, have never been part of anything like this. Well, at least not during football season.
“There wasn’t an emphasis on football,” Cignetti said. “Basketball school.”
Indiana has five NCAA basketball championships and claims Bob Knight as the patron saint of the program.
IU is a football school now, led by Cignetti, the perfectionist from Pittsburgh hired away from James Madison after the 2023 season.
“This is something none of us ever thought would happen,” said billionaire Mark Cuban, Indiana class of 1981.
Indiana’s metamorphosis has gone hand-in-hand with a seismic shift in college football. The transfer portal and paying players has tilted the balance of power and made it possible for the historically downtrodden to rise up and contend for titles.
But Indiana has exceeded even the wildest expectations. Cignetti laid the foundation with 13 transfers from JMU, such as Sarratt, linebacker Aiden Fisher and defensive end Mikail Kamara, and built a well-oiled machine of experienced players who rarely make mistakes.
“Are there eight first-round draft choices on this team? Probably not, no, there aren’t,” Cignetti said. “But this team, the whole was greater than the sum of its parts.”
The Hoosiers were lovable underdogs in 2024, with a surprising run to the Playoff but lopsided losses to Ohio State and Notre Dame that made many question their staying power. Cignetti added Mendoza, the Cal transfer who grew up in Miami, and turned the Hoosiers into a juggernaut this season. In the postseason, the Hoosiers easily dispatched Alabama and Oregon to advance to South Florida and looked like they might do something similar to Miami at halftime.
“It starts with belief. Sometimes the belief has to be a little irrational, right?” said guard Pat Coogan, the Rose Bowl MVP who transferred from Notre Dame to Indiana this season.
Indiana led 10-0 at the half, controlling Miami’s running game and putting together one long touchdown drive. Mendoza went 85 yards on 14 plays, converting four third downs, including one where the Hoosiers got a do-over after an offside penalty on All-America pass rusher Rueben Bain Jr.
Of course, Indiana made the Hurricanes pay for their mistake. It’s the Hoosiers’ specialty.
Nowakowski plunged in from the 1 to make it 10-0 Hoosiers with 6:07 left in the first half.
Miami finally found Indiana territory with its final drive of the first half, but facing fourth-and-2 from the Hoosiers 32, Canes coach Mario Cristobal bled the clock down and sent out Carter Davis for a 50-yard field goal attempt that the senior kicker promptly doinked off the right upright.
After bullying their way through three CFP games behind 225-pound running back Mark Fletcher, the Hurricanes’ backs managed just 27 yards on 11 carries in the first half against Indiana.
Miami got some good licks on Mendoza, bloodying his lip early on a shot from Jakobe Thomas that probably could have drawn a flag for targeting. Bain and Akheem Mesidor each had sacks on IU’s first drive of the second half. Then, on Miami’s second offensive play of the third quarter, Fletcher found a seam on a stretch play and went 54 yards for a touchdown to cut the lead to 10-7.
After winning their first two CFP games by a combined 69 points, Indiana faced its toughest second-half challenge since the Hoosiers beat Ohio State to win their first Big Ten title since 1967.
Unable to keep Miami’s pass rushers away from Mendoza, Indiana’s response came from special teams. Kamara swatted Dylan Joyce’s punt attempt from near Miami’s goal line and Isaiah Jones fell on the bouncing ball in the end zone to put the Hoosiers up 17-7.
Miami was undaunted. The last at-large team picked in the 12-team field, the Hurricanes spent much of the last month of the season trying to prove their Playoff-worthiness.
“I think it can’t be understated what these guys have done,” Cristobal said. “The ability to take a team on Nov. 1 that was lower than low, and to find a way to every single day hold people accountable, demand the best of them, bring energy and enthusiasm to practice and get the results on a weekly basis, a 1-0 for I think seven weeks straight, it is a testament to what they are.
“Again, they’re the best thing that’s happened to Miami, the University of Miami and our community in 25 years.”
Fletcher ran for 112 yards and two touchdowns on 17 carries and Toney had 10 catches for 122 yards.
“This one hurt, and it’s supposed to hurt,” Fletcher said. “If you’re worth a damn as a competitor, it’s going to hurt. But the people coming back, we know what it takes, and we’ve just got to go back to work.”
But this was Indiana’s night and Indiana’s season.
“I love to tell you, two years ago, I thought this was going to happen. I’d be lying,” Fisher said. “Coach Cig 100 percent believed it, and this is just unbelievable.”
Once a laughing stock in college football, a punching bag for the likes of Ohio State and Michigan in the Big Ten, the Hoosiers’ rags-to-riches story ended perfectly.