Indiana secures first ever football title with 27-21 win over Miami

The Indiana Hoosiers outlasted the Miami Hurricanes, winning their first football title in school history with a 27-21 victory Monday night.

A program that had played a total of 13 bowl games in the 130 years before coach Curt Cignetti arrived in 2024 had a historic run en route to a 16-0 season and a national title.

Miami had a chance to steal the win, going down the field with less than two minutes to play. But Miami quarterback Carson Beck threw a game-clinching interception with 44 seconds left.

Hoosiers quarterback Fernando Mendoza is also the first Heisman winner in Indiana history, and he grew up just a stone’s throw from Miami – affectionately known as “The U.”

“I was a two-star recruit. I wasn’t a five-star recruit. Who’s supposed to be in this position, who’s supposed to be on the number one team in the country?” Mendoza told “60 Minutes” on the team’s improbable journey.

The Heisman Trophy winner finished with 186 passing yards, but it was his tackle-breaking 12-yard touchdown run on fourth-and-4 with 9:18 remaining that defined this game — and the Hoosiers’ season.

Mendoza’s TD gave Cignetti’s team a 10-point lead – barely enough breathing space to hold off a frenzied charge by the Hurricanes, who bloodied Mendoza’s lip early, then came alive late behind 112 yards and two scores from Mark Fletcher, but never took the lead.

Two fourth-down gambles by Cignetti in the fourth quarter, after Fletcher’s second touchdown run cut the Hurricanes’ deficit to three, put Mendoza in position to shine.

The first was a 19-yard completion by Charlie Becker on a back shoulder fade that these guys have been perfecting all season. Four games later came a decision and a championship-winning game.

Cignetti sent his kicker on fourth-and-4 from the 12, but quickly called his second timeout. The team huddled on the field and the coach established a coin toss for the quarterback.

“We rolled the dice and said, ‘They’re going to be there again and they were,’” Cignetti said. “We blocked him well, he broke a tackle or two and got in the end zone.”

Mendoza, who is not known for being a run-first player, slipped a tackle, then took a hit and spun around. He kept his feet, then left them, going horizontal and stretching the ball – a ready-made poster photo for a title taken directly from the film.

Indiana would not be denied.

“I had to take off,” said Mendoza, who suffered a split lip and bloodied arm from a fierce Miami defense that sacked him three times and hit him several times. “I would die for my team.”

Fletcher was a one-man force, reaching triple digits for the third time in four playoff games and transforming a moribund offense into something much more.

It ended in a one-score game, and the ‘Canes — the visiting team playing on their home field — moved into Indiana territory before Carson Beck’s heave was caught by Jamari Sharpe, a Miami native who ensured that this season’s only miracle would be Indiana’s.

“Did I think something like this was possible? Probably not,” Cignetti said. “But if you keep your nose down and keep working, anything is possible.”

The College Football Playoff trophy is now headed to the unlikeliest of places: Bloomington, Indiana — a campus that suffered a national-leading 713 losses before Cignetti’s arrival.

“I took a few risks, I found a way. Let me tell you: We won the national championship at Indiana University. It can be done,” Cignetti said.

Indiana’s final record of 16–0 — aided by the extra games afforded by the expanded 12-team playoff — matched a perfect-season win total last compiled by Yale in 1894.

In a bit of symmetry, this undefeated title comes 50 years after Bob Knight’s basketball team went 32-0 to win it all in this state’s favorite sport.