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How Indiana saved college football by becoming a bully and winning national title
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- How Indiana saved college football by becoming a bully and winning national title
MIAMI GARDENS, FL — It almost had to happen this way. A course correction so remarkably defining, it can change an entire sport and flip it on its axis.
The lovable loser is officially the bully on the block .
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You can thank Indiana later for saving college football from itself. For the time being, anyway.
"Not bad for a bunch of nobodies," said Indiana running back Roman Hemby .
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The unloved and unwanted from Indiana , not long ago the losingest program in the history of college football, are the change agent the sport desperately needs. A thrilling 27-21 victory over Miami in the College Football Playoff national championship game left no doubt.
Despite the green and greed of the NIL era, despite rampant free-player movement, despite a devolving discourse that included a head coach leaving a championship-level team for another job in the middle of the fight, it always comes back to what happens on the grass.
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The game itself — the product on the field — is bulletproof. And now it comes with the story of a lifetime.
Indiana — good, god in heaven, Indi-freaking-ana — has somehow brought us all back to square one.
"We sent a message to society," said Indiana coach Curt Cignetti, the architect of this you've got to be kidding me metamorphosis. "If you keep your nose to the grindstone and have the right people, anything is possible."
Indiana football coach Curt Cignetti reacts after his team defeated Miami in the College Football Playoff national championship game at Hard Rock Stadium.
Even in the middle of a raging storm of change in the sport, one that typically leaves programs like Indiana in its wake. Not this time, not this team.
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Purism, everyone, has been replaced by realism.
Forget about blue bloods and their vice grip on the sport. Forget about building a roster with elite high school recruits, and supplementing with impact players from the transfer portal.
Forget everything you know — or what you believed to be true — about program building. It's all blown to pieces now.
Just in case you're still a bit hazy on the seismic change Indiana just unleashed, consider this: Jamari Sharpe , the cornerback who finished off this remarkable run with a game-clinching interception on the last drive of the game, grew up about 20 minutes from Hard Rock Stadium.
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Used to sit in the stands as a kid and bleed orange and green, and dreamed about playing for the Canes. Played high school ball at Northwestern, a legendary prep program that has won eight state titles.
And Miami wanted no part of him in 2022 when Miami coach Mario Cristobal took over. Four years later, with the Hurricanes driving for the potential game-winning touchdown and the Hoosiers playing Cover Two defense, Sharpe had safety help over the top and didn't have to worry about getting beat deep.
Miami quarterback Carson Beck threw a deep ball down the left sideline, and Sharp — who had peeled off under coverage — leaped and intercepted the throw. Game over.
"I guess I showed them what they missed out on," Sharpe said. "Miami is my city, but Indiana is my university."
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And there it is. The four-year free-for-all of overvalued NIL contracts and free player movement, of my billionaire booster is bigger than yours, has been dealt a severe dose of reality.
It's easy to embrace Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza , and his return to Miami — the Canes passed on him, too — as the story of this team. He won the Heisman Trophy, scored the game-clinching touchdown. He's the face of the program.
But this is much more than a former three-star quarterback recruit from the transfer portal on a one-year NIL deal. This is a radical championship run of perfection, a story built on the most improbable of players no one wanted — play after play, game after game.
Those no-stars lined up against the four- and five-stars on the Miami defense in the second quarter and shoved them into the end zone on tight end Riley Nowakowski 's 2-yard touchdown run that gave the Hoosiers a 10-0 lead. The same Nowakowski who didn't have a college offer, and walked on at Wisconsin before transferring to Indiana.
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Midway through the third quarter, after Miami closed to 10-7, Mikail Kamara blocked a punt that Isaiah Jones recovered in the end zone for a 17-7 lead. Kamara wasn't even rated by recruiting services coming out of high school.
Zero stars .
"I played pretty much every level of football. FCS, Group of Five, and now the Big Ten," said Kamara, who followed Cignetti from James Madison to Indiana. "Just to do this journey, I didn't think it was possible. To be here today is surreal."
Now here's the kicker to this whopper of a story: the ridiculous ride from dead ass last in college football history to the king of the sport almost never happened. In fact, Cignetti still doesn't understand how it did.
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It was one of those unseasonably cold late November Indiana nights in 2023, and Cignetti had flown home to Virginia after interviewing for the job. Laying in bed with his wife, Manette, he finally admitted he was going to stay at James Madison.
He loved the school and what they were building, and they enjoyed living in Harrisonburg. Why leave?
Then Indiana athletic director Scott Dolson called, and before Cignetti could say a word, yelled into the phone, "Congratulations, you're the new Indiana coach, and we're going to kick some butt!"
Cignetti, never shy to speak his mind, was near speechless.
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"I said something, about five or six words I can't say here, hung up the phone and that was it," Cignetti said. "He didn't give me a chance to say no. My wife said, 'You should have seen that look in your eye. Like, what did I just do?'"
Simple, he changed college football forever.
This is what a sport teetering on green and greed — from all involved — quickly needed to temporarily right a listing ship. Four years of racing toward a make it up as you go along financial and player movement model had become an unwieldly operational nightmare.
In some strange upside down world, four measly years of NIL gluttony somehow supplanted more than 150 years of history and tradition. Or as the great David Gilmour once sang of money and its ills:
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A new car, caviar, four-star daydream
Think I'll buy me a football team
So SMU did, and got to the CFP in 2024. Texas Tech did it in 2025. Miami spent as much as anyone in a single season, including $4 million for Beck — a bargain at the going rate now one year later.
The Canes could pay as much as $6-7 million for Duke transfer quarterback Darian Mensah, the last available impact player at the position for 2026. It's all about sustaining momentum, and the answer is always money.
"I don't think there should be a (salary) cap," Miami athletic director Dan Radakovich said last weekend. "We've never been able to rule ourselves into competitive equity."
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So Indiana simply ran over everyone over with a competitive desire not seen in the sport. Ever.
While Hoosier fans made confetti angels on the field, while they panicked and stuffed the Crimson, Cream and gold paper memories in their pockets before the field vacuums arrived, Cignetti was talking about a two-year ride of 27 wins in 29 games.
Indiana won a single Big Ten game the season before he arrived, and it's not like he had boosters throwing money at the process. This was hard and work, good work, and eventually, rewarding work.
The answer isn't always money.
"I would like to say our NIL is nowhere near what people think it is," Cignetti said.
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It didn't need to be for the story of a lifetime.
Not bad for a bunch of nobodies.
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB .
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Indiana's national championship run can save college football's future
