We are living in a world where Indiana is the champion of the College Football Playoff.
The Hoosiers capped a 16-0 season with a 27-21 win over Miami in the national championship game on Monday night. It’s simply one of the most improbable stories in modern sports history. Indiana was recently the program with the most losses in college football history. Now the Hoosiers are on top of the world.
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Here are the five plays that defined Indiana’s championship in the order they happened.
Mikail Kamara’s blocked punt
The Hoosiers led 10-0 at halftime but Miami snuck back into the game early in the third quarter on RB Mark Fletcher’s 57-yard TD run. The Hoosiers punted twice after Fletcher’s score, but Miami didn’t come close to taking the lead.
And then the game officially got wild. Kamara easily got around his blocker to get his hand on Dylan Joyce’s kick. The ball bounded into the end zone, where it was recovered by Isaiah Jones for a TD.
It was the second straight playoff game with a blocked punt for the Hoosiers. In the Peach Bowl, Daniel Ndukwe blocked a punt in the fourth quarter as Indiana was blowing out Oregon.
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Kamara and Jones are two of Indiana’s key players on defense. But Indiana coach Curt Cignetti isn’t afraid to use his starters on special teams. And that decision paid off handsomely Monday night.
Fernando Mendoza’s TD run
It’s impossible to overstate the importance of Mendoza’s touchdown run in Indiana football history. It’s the biggest play ever for Indiana and it’s not even close.
Ahead of the title game, the defining moment of Indiana’s season and Mendoza’s Heisman Trophy was his game-winning TD pass to Omar Cooper Jr. against Penn State. Now, Cooper’s toe tap in the back of the end zone has been surpassed by the image of Mendoza diving headlong into the end zone.
It’s an individual effort that stands out in its own right. But the context adds even more greatness. Mendoza’s run came on a designed QB draw on fourth down after Indiana called timeout for the second time in the second half.
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With five yards needed for the first down, you couldn’t have blamed Cignetti for kicking the field goal for a likely six-point lead. A fourth-down failure could have been a big jolt for Miami. Undeterred by that possibility, Cignetti left his offense out on the field after using the timeout and Mendoza broke multiple tackles before stretching the ball out across the goal line for a 24-14 lead.
Malachi Toney keeps Miami in it
Mendoza’s TD could have been a backbreaker for Miami. It put the Hoosiers up 24-14 with less than 10 minutes to go.
Instead, Miami cut Indiana’s lead to three. Again.
Malachi Toney accounted for 71 yards of a 91-yard drive for the Hurricanes. The eighth and final play of that drive came when Toney took a short pass from Carson Beck and ran 22 yards for a touchdown.
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It was the third time Miami had cut Indiana’s lead to three in the second half. It was also the final time. The Hurricanes never led at any point during the game.
Toney, meanwhile, finished with 10 catches for 122 yards to cap off a stellar freshman season. A player who could still be in high school, Toney reclassified to enroll early at Miami and was the team’s leading receiver as a true freshman in 2025.
Charlie Becker’s back shoulder catches
Sophomore receiver Charlie Becker emerged as a reliable target for Mendoza over the second half of the season. And he continued to make clutch catches on Monday night.
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Just look at this fourth-down grab just plays before Mendoza’s touchdown run.
Becker then made a similar catch over eight minutes later that nearly clinched the game for the Hoosiers.
Becker caught a 19-yard pass on 3rd-and-7 with 2:30 to go to put Indiana at the Miami 33-yard line. Had the pass fallen incomplete, Indiana would have been punting from midfield and Miami would have had all three of its timeouts while trailing 24-21.
Instead, Indiana kicked a field goal to go up 27-21. And by the time that Miami got the ball back with 1:42 to go, the Hurricanes had used all three of their timeouts.
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Jamari Sharpe’s game-sealing interception
Miami nearly made it incredibly interesting though.
Thanks to a roughing the passer call on the second play of the drive, Miami got across midfield with just over 50 seconds to go and a short completion to CJ Daniels put the Hurricanes at the Indiana 41-yard line.
But with the clock running after a first down, Carson Beck tried to go deep to Keelan Marion with a safety closing in from the middle of the field. The ball was underthrown and Sharpe, the corner trailing Marion on the play, was able to easily make the interception.
After kneeling down inside the 10-yard line, Sharpe was penalized for taking his helmet off in celebrating. But after two quick plays to run out the clock, the field position didn’t matter. Indiana had won its first national title.
