HARD ROCK STADIUM (MIAMI GARDENS, Fla.) — The cigar smoke seemed to thicken with each passing second. You could smell it from the hallway outside a raucous Indiana locker room shortly before midnight on Monday night, an hour or so removed from the game-clinching interception by defensive back Jamari Sharpe. And once the doors opened to allow reporters into the fray, where music blasted and screams were unleashed and this unforgettable band of Hoosiers celebrated something so improbable that it’s quite difficult to describe, clouds of hazy hallelujah smacked each newcomer in the face.
A dance battle erupted near the middle of the room. Roughly two dozen players — all of them seemingly cloaked in black national championship T-shirts and matching hats — bouncing and bopping and blaring the lyrics to rap anthems loud enough to rattle the walls. Toward the back, two players shared a toast with nips of Fireball Cinnamon Whiskey and downed their shots as a cell phone camera recorded. “You didn’t see that,” one of them said to a passing reporter. Toward the front, two staffers wondered aloud where they could find some beer.
This is what it looks like when a program that began the season with more losses than any in college football history authors perhaps the greatest story American sports has ever seen. This is what it looks like when traditional Big Ten bottom feeder Indiana becomes the first team to finish a season 16-0 since Yale in 1894, punctuating the task with the first national championship in school history. This is what it looks like when a 64-year-old head coach named Curt Cignetti, who paid his dues at IUP, Elon and James Madison, flashes a complete mastery of the modern era by building a roster full of underrecruited and overlooked players who wanted nothing more than to embody their leader’s unwavering intensity and impose his will — their will — on every opponent Indiana encountered.
The latest victim, the final victim, was No. 10 Miami in the Hurricanes’ own stadium, where proud Indiana supporters formed the majority of a crowd numbering 67,227 fans, every one of whom was metaphorically drunk on an elixir typically reserved for programs like Ohio State, Alabama, Georgia and Michigan. But Cignetti and his unshakable team of unbreakable players did what they’ve done all year to upend Miami, 27-21, and finish this fairytale so perfectly that even Hollywood might balk at the script.
“I think we sent a message, first of all, to society that if you keep your nose to the grindstone and work hard and you’ve got the right people, anything’s possible,” Cignetti said in the postgame news conference. “In our particular situation in the athletic world, college football has changed quite a bit. The balance of power, also. But we have the right people on our staff, in the weight room, in the locker room, and we have great senior leadership and togetherness, and we had a really good quarterback that played his best when the chips were down.”
Here are my takeaways:
1. Curt Cignetti cemented his legacy
(Photo by Jamie Schwaberow/Getty Images)
His stones were laid bare for everyone to see. It was fourth-and-4 from the Miami 12-yard line with 9:27 remaining in the fourth quarter when Cignetti — scowling, frowning, hands-on-hips, pacing anxiously along the sideline — called timeout to ponder the season-defining decision he was about to make. Would he really pull his kicking unit off the field and renege on an opportunity to extend the Hoosiers’ lead to 20-14? Would he really send his offense back out there for such an unnecessary risk?
That Cignetti answered both of those questions in the affirmative left both sides of the crowd at Hard Rock Stadium stunned. Anticipation bubbled and surged as the play clock wound down. Guts tightened. Fists clenched. One play to turn the tide in a national championship game that, for the better part of three quarters, felt thoroughly controlled by the top-ranked Hoosiers before it slowly began slipping away. One play for Cignetti to become immortal. But only if it worked.
The decision from Indiana offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan kept the ball in his Heisman Trophy winner’s hands with a designed quarterback draw: up the middle and between the gaps of an offensive line that had cracked enough in the opening half to where Mendoza absorbed a beating. But this time, when the Hoosiers absolutely had to have it, Mendoza surged across the line of scrimmage with purpose, planted his left foot in the ground to change direction and plowed through two defenders at the 5-yard line. Then he placed his right hand on the turf for balance and dove backward into the end zone for a touchdown that will be replayed in Bloomington for generations.
“I’ll just remember it as Fernando is just an absolute beast,” Indiana wide receiver Charlie Becker said in the locker room. “I thought he was going to be tackled 10 yards ago and this dude is just spinning and diving. It’s just a testament to his character. Fernando, he’ll do anything for all of us and our teammates. He’ll go out there and put his body on the line for us.”
(Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images)
For as superhuman as Mendoza’s run truly was, the play itself said as much or more about Cignetti than anyone else. It was Cignetti’s unflappable, unparalleled self-belief that underwrote his eyebrow-raising decision to accept the Indiana job to begin with, willingly tossing himself into what many considered the worst job in the Big Ten. It was his unmatched eye for talent that constructed a team full of self-proclaimed “misfits” and transformed those players into giant killers and blue-chip slayers. It was his incredible aptitude for quarterback development that elevated a former zero-star recruit in Mendoza into the Heisman Trophy recipient and likely No. 1 overall pick in the NFL Draft.
The numbers surrounding Cignetti’s first two years at Indiana are staggering: With an overall record of 27-2, he has the most wins by any Big Ten head coach to begin a tenure; he’s the first coach to win a national title within two seasons of taking over a program since Gene Chizik did so in Year 2 at Auburn during the 2010 campaign; he’s joined Larry Coker, Dennis Erickson and Barry Switzer as the only coaches to win a national title and post multiple 10-win seasons in his first two years at a given school. It’s no longer a stretch to consider him the best college football coach in the country.
“What does it not say about Coach Cig?” Indiana linebacker Aiden Fisher said in the locker room after the game. “That guy is unbelievable. I would love to tell you two years ago [that] I believed this was going to occur. I’d be mendacity. Coach Cig one hundred pc believed it, and that is simply unbelievable. I don’t suppose it’s hit me but.”
2. Again-shoulder throws are Indiana’s bread and butter
(Photograph by Alex Slitz/Getty Pictures)
A part of what makes Indiana’s offense so spectacular is that nearly nothing the Hoosiers do is gimmicky. They don’t movement for the sake of movement; they don’t use operating backs or tight ends as auxiliary quarterbacks in wildcat alignments; they don’t make use of trick performs. The system devised and perfected by Cignetti and Shanahan is rooted in pro-level ideas made efficient by ruthless precision. And so, though most defensive coordinators know precisely what the Hoosiers are going to do, not a single opponent on Indiana’s schedule this season may cease it.
Working example: the back-shoulder throw. No quarterback in faculty soccer throws it higher than Mendoza. No receivers in faculty soccer haul them in as recurrently as Indiana’s trio of Elijah Sarratt, Omar Cooper Jr. and Charlie Becker. “Too many to depend,” Becker instructed me when requested what number of such passes he’s caught from Mendoza within the final calendar yr.
On Monday night time, when Indiana’s bid for a nationwide championship started to teeter, Mendoza related with Becker — his roommate — for 2 acrobatic completions that left Miami defensive again Ethan O’Connor dealing with the fallacious route each occasions. The primary was a 19-yarder on fourth-and-5 amid the Hoosiers’ opening possession of the fourth quarter, with a leaping Becker touchdown delicately alongside the sideline to protect a drive that ended with a landing. The second got here within the waning moments, on third-and-7 close to midfield, with Mendoza rifling one other 19-yard completion that moved the chains and compelled the Hurricanes to start taking timeouts.
(Photograph by Steve Limentani/ISI Pictures through Getty Pictures)
“Me and Fernando,” Becker mentioned within the locker room, “as quickly as he received right here within the spring, we started working. We labored on like each single route at like 5:30 within the morning. It’s all that arduous work. Not simply me, all these guys. All of us put in that additional work after exercises have been performed. What that is, it’s only a mixture of all that additional work we’ve put in.”
Two days prior, on Saturday morning, Miami defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman was requested how the Hurricanes would defend the sorts of passes usually described as indefensible. He gave an in depth and eloquent reply in regards to the significance of successful the primary 5 yards as soon as the ball is snapped, about remaining in-phase with receivers down the sideline. He mentioned the actual methods Miami’s defensive backs are instructed to make use of can change on a weekly foundation, be that chest to chest or taking part in by means of the within arm. In the long run, Hetherman mentioned, it will come all the way down to trusting fundamentals and method.
“Our guys have performed a superb job of not panicking in that state of affairs,” Hetherman instructed me over the weekend, “not panicking within the second and trusting the method and trusting the way in which that they have been coached and the way in which that they did it in observe and actually within the drills each single day.”
However when the second lastly arrived and O’Connor had not one, however two probabilities to showcase every little thing the Hurricanes had practiced so diligently all season, Mendoza and Becker confirmed the world that Indiana merely does it higher.
3. Hit early and sometimes, Fernando Mendoza by no means blinked
Barely 12 minutes had elapsed earlier than a flurry of hits from the Hurricanes’ heat-seeking protection bloodied the mouth and face of Mendoza, whose case was argued to the referees by an impassioned Cignetti through hand gestures and harsh phrases alike. Again and again within the opening quarter, Miami de-cleated Mendoza on each passes and run fakes, roaring into the backfield whereas executing the well timed pressures dreamed up by Hetherman, who used to work for Cignetti at James Madison. The passing numbers have been nonetheless respectable — Mendoza accomplished seven of his first 10 makes an attempt for 70 yards within the opening quarter and wasn’t sacked — however the bodily toll appeared compounding and actual.
With Indiana main 3–0 on the finish of the primary quarter, it was truthful to marvel what might need been floating by means of Hetherman’s thoughts, given how he had described Mendoza on the Hurricanes’ media session two days earlier. Seated behind a podium contained in the Miami Seaside Conference Middle, he advised that Mendoza really improves the extra usually he will get hit. Clutch performances in slender victories over Iowa, Indiana, Oregon and Ohio State, all of whom actually rattled Mendoza at occasions, appeared to lend credence to Hetherman’s principle.
Starting with Indiana’s opening drive of the second quarter, which adopted a 3rd consecutive three-and-out by a stagnating Miami offense, Mendoza accomplished 4 of his subsequent 5 passes whereas overseeing a marathon 14-play, 85-yard drive that ended with a brief landing run. He produced good points of 12 yards, 8 yards and 15 yards along with a devilishly positioned back-shoulder throw that elicited a important go interference penalty towards cornerback O.J. Frederique Jr. on third-and-6.
(Photograph by Alex Slitz/Getty Pictures)
When Indiana tight finish Riley Nowakowski powered throughout the purpose line on an inside handoff, smashing Miami’s defensive position on the level of assault, the Hoosiers’ lead swelled to 10-0. They drained practically seven minutes off the clock and gained extra yards on that one possession than Miami did in your complete first half. Mendoza entered the locker room having accomplished 12 of 17 passes for 116 yards.
“Let me let you know, Fernando, I do know he is nice in interviews and comes off because the All-American man, however he has the guts of a lion in terms of competitors,” Cignetti mentioned within the postgame information convention. “That man competes like a warrior. He received actually smacked a couple of occasions on this recreation. That one drive [where] we kicked a area purpose, there ought to have been two roughing the quarterbacks and one excessive hit to the top that weren’t referred to as. I am all for letting them play, however once they cross the road you have to name them.”
4. The Huge Ten is now faculty soccer’s premier convention
(Photograph by Patrick Smith/Getty Pictures)
Previous to kickoff on Monday night time, throughout the portion of pregame when luminaries and celebrities have been gladhanding their manner across the area, posing for photographs and guaranteeing they’re seen, a number of convention commissioners have been among the many dignitaries meandering backward and forward.
First, there was SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, whose league failed to provide an entrant within the nationwide championship recreation for a 3rd consecutive season. It’s the convention’s longest such drought since a four-year chasm from 1999-2002, when the BCS system was nonetheless deciding faculty soccer’s destiny. Subsequent, there was Huge 12 commissioner Brett Yormark, whose league winner and solely Faculty Soccer Playoff participant — Texas Tech — was shutout by Oregon within the quarterfinals. The Huge 12 hasn’t received a nationwide title since former league member Texas knocked off USC throughout arguably the best championship recreation of all time in 2005.
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Neither Sankey nor Yormark may have really loved what they have been about to observe at Laborious Rock Stadium, the place a 3rd completely different Huge Ten group captured the league’s third consecutive nationwide title. A run that started with Michigan’s undefeated season in 2023 and continued with Ohio State’s postseason dominance in 2024 was prolonged for a minimum of one other yr with Indiana’s 27-21 victory over Miami. It marks the primary time that the Huge Ten has received three straight championships because the early Forties, when Minnesota received two in a row and Ohio State punctuated the trio. Indiana additionally grew to become the game’s latest first-time nationwide champion since Florida in 1996.
“This has been the perfect expertise,” Huge Ten commissioner Tony Petitti mentioned in a postgame interview. “The coaches, all of the gamers — and clearly it means a lot for Indiana. Nevertheless it means rather a lot to your complete league, all of our coaches, all of our gamers. What Indiana has performed in two years, I’ve by no means seen something prefer it in all of the years I’ve labored in sports activities. So I’m simply blown away.”
(Photograph by Joe Robbins/Icon Sportswire through Getty Pictures)
The end result left Petitti as each the happiest chief in collegiate athletics and arguably its strongest — an unofficial place lengthy reserved for Sankey. It’s Petitti who can now experience capturing the game’s greatest prize to punctuate an uneasy stretch by which he shouldered heavy scrutiny for the league’s proposed personal capital deal and backing of a 24-team playoff format throughout the ongoing structural debates.
And but there Petitti was throughout the on-field celebration Monday night time, sharing amusing with Indiana athletic director Scott Dolson atop the stage because the joyful ceremony unfolded throughout him. Petitti definitely has detractors — loads of them — however he is additionally received the final three nationwide champions in his league.
“I really feel like we’re simply getting began,” Petitti mentioned. “We’re feeling actually good about the place we’re in soccer. Week in and week out, the standard, the energy of our gamers, the extent of teaching that we’ve got, the dedication on behalf of all 18 members to excel and play laborious, the followers that we’ve got, the stadiums — we really feel actually good about the place we’re. I believe we’re headed for actually nice issues. These final three years have been unimaginable. I simply count on much more.”
4½. What’s subsequent?
Indiana will enter its offseason having already accomplished most of its important enterprise. In mid-October, Dolson efficiently inked Cignetti to a brand new, eight-year contract price $93 million that runs by means of 2033, although the varsity is now obligated to extend the annual pay in order that Cignetti stays among the many three highest-paid coaches within the nation, having not too long ago been handed by new LSU head coach Lane Kiffin. The Hoosiers additionally locked in defensive coordinator Bryant Haines and offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan to profitable new offers price greater than $5 million per yr mixed, entrenching them among the many sport’s richest coordinators.
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Such spectacular retention definitely performed a consider Indiana’s switch portal success earlier this month, with the Hoosiers rapidly securing 17 gamers for a category that now ranks seventh nationally and third within the Huge Ten behind Ohio State and Penn State. The main additions have been former TCU quarterback Josh Hoover, former Michigan State broad receiver Nick Marsh, former Penn State cornerback A.J. Harris, former Wisconsin inside offensive lineman Joe Brunner and former Kansas State edge rusher Tobi Osunsanmi — all of whom rank among the many prime 125 prospects within the portal, in response to 247Sports. The Hoosiers’ highschool recruiting class sits thirty fourth nationally and ninth within the Huge Ten.
There may be extra work to be performed at Miami, which secured a top-12 switch portal class every of the final 4 cycles however has endured a considerably slower begin to participant acquisition in 2026. Regardless of this season’s journey to the nationwide championship recreation, the Hurricanes solely earned six commitments previous to kickoff on Monday night time, two of whom are kickers. Three newcomers rank among the many prime 135 portal entrants in former South Carolina broad receiver Vandrevius Jacobs, former Boston Faculty security Omar Thornton and former West Virginia broad receiver Cam Vaughn.
The largest unknown is at quarterback now that Beck’s lengthy and winding collegiate profession has ended. A stunning last-minute portal entrance from Duke quarterback Darian Mensah triggered speedy hypothesis about his potential transfer to Miami, which hit on switch quarterbacks every of the final two seasons in Beck and former No. 1 general decide Cam Ward. There are potential hurdles to navigate surrounding Mensah’s current NIL cope with the Blue Devils, who signed him to a two-year settlement previous to the 2025 marketing campaign. However rumblings from in and across the Hurricanes the previous couple of days recommend there’s a respectable likelihood Mensah would be the program’s quarterback of the long run.
Michael Cohen covers faculty soccer and faculty basketball for FOX Sports activities. Comply with him at @Michael_Cohen13.
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