MIAMI – No. 1 Indiana bested No. 10 Miami 27-21 in the College Football Playoff National Championship on Monday night at Hard Rock Stadium, capping off college football’s greatest turnaround and cementing itself among the best teams in the sport’s illustrious history.
Less than 800 days after accepting the job and undertaking a full rebuild, head coach Curt Cignetti has taken the Hoosiers to the highest of highs, doing what no other coach in the program’s 127-year history could. After Indiana’s first unbeaten regular season, the program’s first outright Big Ten title in 80 years, its first bowl win since 1991 and now Indiana’s first ever National Championship, the relentless architect of college football’s “emerging superpower” has done what few thought was remotely possible in Bloomington.
His record through two seasons is 27-2, and win No. 27 is a National Championship.
Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Fernando Mendoza ends his college football career as a champion in his hometown, writing the final chapter in the first 16-0 season by a major Division I program since Yale in 1894. Mendoza is the first Heisman winner to win the National Championship since Alabama wide receiver Devonta Smith accomplished the feat in 2020.
Though he has yet to officially declare, Mendoza is projected to be the No. 1 overall pick in this year’s NFL Draft, and the Las Vegas Raiders are in position to select him. Members of the Raiders brass, including NFL legend and minority owner Tom Brady, were in attendance on Monday night.
Spending some of his youth in Boston, Mendoza grew up as a New England Patriots fan who, like many others, idolized Brady. As was the case throughout the postseason, the Indiana signal-caller rose to the occasion on the biggest stage, this time in front of his childhood hero. Mendoza was 16-for-27 through the air, passing for 186 yards and zero touchdowns.
Indiana’s defense proved too much for Miami quarterback Carson Beck and the Hurricanes offense to overcome, as Beck was held to just 19-for-32 passing, throwing for 232 yards, while the ‘Canes totaled 110 rushing yards on the evening. Miami finishes the season with a 13-3 record, falling one game short of being the first team to win a National Championship in its home stadium since it beat Nebraska in the 1992 Orange Bowl.
The Hoosiers’ 16-0 record includes a historic 63-10 beatdown of then-No. 9 Illinois, their first win at Iowa’s Kinnick Stadium since 2007 and a 30-20 win at Oregon that marked the Ducks’ first home loss since 2022. Year two of the Cignetti era also features Indiana’s first-ever win at Penn State, which came courtesy of a Heisman-worthy game-winning drive, led by Mendoza and capped off with an acrobatic, toe-tap touchdown catch from wide receiver Omar Cooper Jr., a holdover from the Tom Allen era.
Indiana’s postseason run began with a Big Ten Championship win over the previously unbeaten, top-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes, which gave the Hoosiers the No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff. They dismantled Alabama, 38-3, in the CFP Quarterfinal at the Rose Bowl, setting up a rematch with Oregon in the CFP Semifinal at the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl. Indiana mauled Oregon in the rematch, winning 56-22 and advancing to the title game.
The last task was to beat Miami, in Miami, and the Hoosiers did just that on Monday night. In a season full of speculation and whispers of regression, Indiana silenced any doubters by stacking 16 straight wins and accomplishing what no major program has done in more than a century. It stands alone atop the mountaintop as the College Football Playoff National Champion.
