The Indiana Hoosiers completed one of the great underdog runs in college football history on Monday night, beating the Miami Hurricanes 27-21 to win the national championship.
Indiana QB and Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza didn’t have his biggest game (186 yards passing, one rushing touchdown) but it was enough to get the Hoosiers over the finish line and complete a perfect 16-0 season.
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Oddsmakers and bettors alike didn’t have high hopes for the Hoosiers before the season.
At BetMGM, Indiana opened with 100-1 odds to win the CFP back in January and still had 100-1 odds before Week Zero in August; there were 22 teams with better odds to win the title, led by the favorite Texas Longhorns at +450. Only 0.8% of the total bets and 0.5% of the total dollars wagered were on the Hoosiers, so they were far from a public team.
Those 100-1 odds are the longest for any national champion since 2001, which is as far back as the Sports Odds History database goes. The previous champion with the longest preseason odds was the 2010 Auburn Tigers at 50-1.
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The Hoosiers weren’t even close to a favorite to win the Big Ten with 35-1 odds, tied for the sixth-best odds to win the conference and well behind favorites Ohio State (+190), Penn State (+240) and Oregon (+350). Indiana defeated Oregon and Penn State en route to a perfect 12-0 regular season before beating Ohio State 13-10 in the Big Ten championship game.
The Hoosiers won and covered their first two CFP games easily before defeating Miami 27-21; the Hurricanes didn’t quite cover the 7.5-point spread though.
