“I just won the national championship at Indiana University. It can be done,” head coach Curt Cignetti said moments after capturing the 2026 College Football Playoff National Championship.
It had been done. Indiana outlasted Miami (Fla.) 27–21, completing one of the most improbable championship runs in college football history.
Cignetti’s words captured the magnitude of the moment. In a sport defined by tradition, talent pipelines and blue-blood power, he had just taken one of the historically lowest-performing programs to the sport’s summit.
Indiana’s rise stands as one of the greatest stories in sports; not because the Hoosiers had the most talent, the best facilities or a decorated history, but because they had none of those things.
Entering the 2025 season, Indiana ranked 72 nationally in roster talent, per 247Sports. The Hoosiers featured just seven four-star players and no five-stars. Few believed they would even factor into the College Football Playoff conversation.
Doubt lingered as Indiana kept winning. The Hoosiers knocked off two top-ten teams and went 12-0 during their regular season, yet skepticism followed them onto the national stage. Many analysts and fans questioned whether a roster lacking elite, top-end talent could sustain success against college football’s traditional powers.
That narrative changed when Indiana stunned then-ranked No. 1 Ohio State 13–10 in the Big Ten Championship Game. After that, the selection committee had no choice. The Hoosiers were ranked No. 1 heading into the College Football Playoff.
Indiana then erased any remaining doubt in dominating fashion, as the Hoosiers dismantled Alabama 38–3 in the Rose Bowl quarterfinal before overwhelming Oregon 56–22 in the Peach Bowl semifinal.
Suddenly, Indiana stood on the brink of the impossible, transforming a program with 715 all-time losses into one competing for the College Football Playoff National Championship.
The final hurdle was Miami (Fla.), one of the nation’s most talented and battle-tested teams, playing in its home stadium. The Hurricanes’ defense ranked fifth in all of college football in points per game allowed, per the NCAA.
Not to mention, both of Miami’s pass rushers, Reuben Bein Jr. and Akheem Mesidor, are projected first-round picks in the upcoming 2026 NFL Draft, according to the NFL.
The championship game was a dogfight, every yard earned the hard way. The Hurricanes closed multiple 10-point deficits and kept the game competitive from beginning to end.
No play captured that better than Fernando Mendoza’s 12-yard rushing touchdown on fourth-and-five in the fourth quarter. Indiana’s Heisman-winning quarterback absorbed multiple hits before launching himself toward the goal line, sacrificing his body for the program he helped redefine.
“I’m going to die for my team out there, and I know they’re going to do the same for me,” Mendoza stated in a post-game interview.
That mindset did not appear by accident. It was cultivated week after week by a program that fully bought into Cignetti’s vision. The selflessness Mendoza described on the field is the same tough-nosed mentality Indiana’s head coach has preached since day one: trust the work, trust each other and let the results follow.
The Hoosier’s championship run can be defined in one word: Relentless. They refused to be defined by a century devoid of success, reaching heights no one believed they could. While this story took place on the football field, the lessons it teaches reach far beyond, inspiring those in the Hoosier state and around the country to never give up.
