The Indiana Hoosiers can now live on in college football immortality. Not only are they champions, but they went unbeaten. Steve Sarkisian once said there would be no 16-0 teams in the new college football landscape, but the Hoosiers just did that, trouncing most playoff opponents on their way.
The one playoff opponent they did not trounce was Miami. The Hurricanes had a chance to win it with a final scoring drive, but the Hoosiers intercepted Carson Beck to close it out. They went from having the most losses in college history to being 16-0 champions.
Indiana wins first College Football Playoff title
The Indiana Hoosiers just completed one of the best collegiate seasons in recent memory, going unbeaten and winning the title. They went through the 12-team playoff, dismantling most teams they faced.
“Are there eight first-round draft choices on this team? Probably not, no, there aren’t,” head coach Curt Cignetti said of his squad after the win via ESPN. “But this team, the whole was greater than the sum of its parts.”
The game pivoted massively on one fourth-quarter play. Facing a fourth-and-five in field goal range, the Hoosiers opted to go for it against Miami’s vaunted defense. Rather than take a six-point lead, they opted to go for the 10-point margin.
Presumptive number one overall pick Fernando Mendoza dropped back and then immediately took off, scrambling wildly for the first down before diving into the end zone for an unreal touchdown that helped give the Hoosiers a much safer lead. Mendoza otherwise went 16/27 for 186 yards but did not throw a touchdown.
“At that point I took the drop,” the QB said. “It wasn’t the perfect coverage for it, but I trust my linemen, and everybody in that entire offense, that entire team had a gritty performance today. And we were all putting our bodies on the line, so it was the least I could do for my brothers.”
Curt Cignetti hypes up Indiana’s turnaround
In FBS history, the Indiana Hoosiers had lost the second-most games of any program ever: 715 games. They did not add to that tally at all this season. They were pretty great last year, but Curt Cignetti put it all together this season.
“It probably is one of the greatest sports stories of all time,” Cignetti said, “but it’s all because of these guys and the staff.” Getting Fernando Mendoza and other key players certainly helped, but this turnaround has been driven by Cignetti primarily.
“I know Indiana’s football history has been pretty poor with some good years sprinkled in there,” Cignetti said. “It was because it wasn’t an emphasis on football, plain and simple. Basketball school. Coach Knight had great teams.”
Times are changing, though. Cignetti said the new emphasis is on football as well as basketball because “you’ve got to be good in football nowadays.” He went on to say, “We’ve got a president that comes from the South that loves football. We’ve got an AD that is a tremendous fundraiser, people person. We’ve got a fan base, the largest alumni base in the country, Indiana University. They’re all-in.”
Indiana will lose Mendoza to the draft, as well as several other key contributors. Winning a title usually leads to massive turnover in the college space. Players reach the pinnacle and then go on. Strangely, the Hoosiers are probably equipped to survive that.
That sentence alone would’ve sounded improbable just a few years ago, which highlights just how far they’ve truly come. What the future holds is anyone’s guess, but with Cignetti involved, it’s hard to see them falling too far from where they’ve come.
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