Fernando Mendoza Leads Indiana To National Title And Perfect Season

On Monday night, Tom Brady attended the College Football Playoff national title game, wearing a gray and black Las Vegas Raiders’ hoodie. The most successful quarterback in NFL history and current Raiders’ minority owner and executive scouted players, most notably Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza, whom the Raiders are expected to select with the No. 1 pick in April’s NFL draft.

As usual, Mendoza shined in the spotlight Monday, running for the decisive touchdown on fourth down in the fourth quarter and leading the Hoosiers to a 27-21 victory over Miami to win IU’s first national championship and complete a perfect season. Indiana became the first major college football team since Yale in 1894 to finish 16-0, culminating one of the most unlikely accomplishments in sports history.

Until coach Curt Cignetti arrived last season, the Hoosiers were among the worst power conference teams for decades. No program had more all-time losses. But after going 3-9 in 2023, they won a school-record 11 games and lost to Notre Dame in the first round of the CFP last year and then took it to another level this season. They won their first outright Big Ten Conference title since 1945 and first postseason game since 1991.

Mendoza, meanwhile, became just the tenth quarterback to win the Heisman Trophy and national title in the same season, something that seemed improbable when he was the 2,149th-ranked player in the high school class of 2022, per 247Sports. Although Mendoza played at Christopher Columbus High School in Miami, he said the Hurricanes showed no interest in him, not even as a walk-on.

When Mendoza entered the transfer portal last year after starting at Cal for two seasons, Miami reached out to him, but he instead signed with Indiana based on his belief in Cignetti and the IU’s coach’s commitment to Mendoza as the starter.

As he spoke with ESPN’s Holly Rowe in a postgame interview Monday night, Mendoza referenced being a two-star high school recruit and overlooked by his hometown team. He had just helped the Hoosiers defeat UM at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Fla., where the Hurricanes play their home games and where Mendoza had attended games as a kid.

“There’s no words,” Mendoza said. “There’s no words. This is the most special moment of my life.”

Unlike the first two playoff victories this season, when No. 1 IU defeated No. 9 Alabama 38-3 and No. 5 Oregon 56-22 and Mendoza had more touchdown passes (eight) than incompletions (five), Mendoza wasn’t as efficient Monday and the Hoosiers were in a much tighter game. Mendoza completed 16 of 27 passes for 186 yards, including just four of 10 attempts for 70 yards in the second half. He was sacked three times and pressured all night and didn’t throw a touchdown for the first time since the season opener.

Still, Mendoza came through in the clutch moments, as did the IU defense and special teams. With just over five minutes remaining in the third quarter, IU’s Mikail Kamara blocked a Miami punt, which Isaiah Jones recovered for a touchdown and 17-7 lead. Miami running back Mark Fletcher Jr. then scored on a three-yard touchdown run, his second score of the night, to cut UM’s deficit to 17-14. Fletcher finished with 112 yards on 17 carries, just the second player this season to run for more than 100 yards against the Hoosiers.

On the next drive, Mendoza completed a 19-yard pass on fourth and five, giving IU the ball at the Miami 18-yard line. Four plays later, IU went for it again on fourth and five. This time, Cignetti called a quarterback draw for Mendoza, who ran up the middle, broke two tackles at the five-yard line, put his right hand down to gain traction, spun and then dove into the end zone for a 24-14 lead. It was Mendoza’s first touchdown run in the CFP and the most memorable play in his brilliant season.

“I had to go air born,” Mendoza told Rowe. “I’ll die for my team, whatever they need me to do. If they need me to take shots in the front, in the back, whatever it is, I’m going to die for my team out there, and I know they’re going to do the same for me.”

Miami, though, wasn’t done. UM quarterback Carson Beck, a sixth-year transfer from Georgia, threw a 22-yard touchdown pass to freshman Malachi Toney, cutting the Hurricanes’ deficit to 24-21. After Indiana made a field goal, Miami got the ball back with 1:42 remaining. But while Beck ran for the winning touchdown with 18 seconds left in Miami’s 31-27 victory over Ole Miss in the CFP semifinals this month, he couldn’t repeat the feat on Monday, as Indiana cornerback Jamari Sharpe picked off Beck’s pass with 44 seconds remaining, clinching IU’s improbable title.

Sharpe, who grew up in Miami, committed to Indiana in 2022 when the Hoosiers were still considered a Big Ten also-ran. He redshirted that year when IU went 4-8. The next season, Sharpe started nine games as the Hoosiers finished 3-9 and fired coach Tom Allen.

In November 2023, Indiana hired Cignetti, who was 62 years old and had only two years of head coaching experience at the Football Bowl Subdivision level, both at James Madison, which had just moved up to the FBS in 2022. Cignetti didn’t get his first head coaching job until he was 50 when he was hired at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, a Division II school where his father was a longtime coach.

At a press conference in December 2023, shortly after taking the Indiana job, Cignetti was asked how he sells players on his vision.

“Yeah, it’s pretty simple,” he said. “I win. Google me.”

At the time, Cignetti was considered brash and unrealistic. No more.

As Cignetti held the CFP trophy on the stage at 11:38 on Monday night, thousands of IU fans at Hard Rock Stadium started singing along to Queen’s “We Are The Champions.”

“Back when I was waxing the staff table at IUP Thanksgiving weekend and school was shut down for the playoffs, did I ever think something like this was possible?,” Cignetti told ESPN’s Rece Davis in a postgame interview. “Probably not. But if you keep your nose down in life and keep working, anything is possible.”