I spoke last week of how the Indiana Hoosiers were going to win the College Football National Championship. The Miami Hurricanes put up a valiant fight but the difference was at quarterback and Indiana had Fernando Mendoza. The Heisman Trophy winner came up big late and led the Hoosiers to a 27-21 victory in the title game.
The Heisman Trophy winner’s touchdown Monday night put an exclamation point on a 27-21 win over Miami that Mendoza tallied the game-winning touchdown that closed out an undefeated season and brought a national championship to a program that had known nothing but losing for almost 140 years.
There are so many stories within this team. It all began two years ago with head coach Curt Cignetti. Prior to his arrival, the program had a nation-leading 713 losses. Now, not one school has more wins over the past two years.
Cignetti, the 64-year-old coaching lifer, started it. But it was Mendoza that got the Hoosiers over the line. He finished with 186 yards passing, but it was that tackle-alluding, stretching-out 12-yard touchdown run on fourth-and-4 with 9:18 left that defined this game and season.
Simply put, Indiana would not be denied.
I find it ironic that this undefeated title comes 50 years after Bob Knight’s Hoosier basketball team went 32-0 to win it all in that state’s favorite sport.
The state of Indiana has always been known as a basketball state. But those days are over. The Hoosiers — yes, the Hoosiers — are national champions.
I have no doubt that this will go down as one of the greatest sports stories of all time.
