Indiana Completes Remarkable Season With 27-21 Win Over Miami and the National Championship

For much of its history, the Indiana University football program played second fiddle to the school’s basketball program. The Hoosier basketball team has five national championships and 22 conference championships, but has been a fair to middling program since its last appearance in the NCAA Championship game in the 2001-2 season. The Hoosiers lost to Maryland in that game, and has not advanced past the Sweet Sixteen since. Still, those five national titles were five more than the football team had.

Before this season, the football team last won a conference title in 1967, and lost its only Rose Bowl game 14-3 to USC. The team last won a bowl game in 1991, winning the Copper Bowl (a forerunner of today’s Rate Bowl) 24-0 over Baylor. That was followed by six bowl game losses, when they reached the post season at all. After a 3-9 season in 2023, Indiana fired head coach Tom Allen, and brought in Curt Cignetti, who had a 52-9 record in five years at James Madison University. JMU was in the FCS Division until the 2022 season, when it moved up to the FBS as a member of the Sun Belt Conference.

It’s quite a leap from the Sun Belt to the Big 10, but in his first season, Cignetti went 11-2, losing only to #2 Ohio State and then to Notre Dame in the first round of the College Football Playoff. Most of the victories were in convincing fashion, but the Hoosier’s strength of schedule wasn’t the most difficult, so questions remained if this was a fluke.

Indiana opened the 2025 season with three non conference victories over Old Dominion, Kennesaw State, and Indiana State, not exactly powerhouses in the FBS (Indiana State is in the FCS Missouri Valley Conference). The test came in the Big 10 opener against then #9 Illinois. Indiana served notice that they were for real, demolishing the Illini 63-10. That game was at home. Could they beat a ranked team on the road. The answer was yes; the Hoosiers beat #3 Oregon 30-20 in Eugene. Indiana finished 12-0, as did Ohio State. IU beat the Buckeyes 13-10 in the Big Ten Championship game and earned the #1 seed in the College Football Playoff.

In between, Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza won the Heisman Trophy, the first Hoosier ever to win the prize.

Indiana opened its College Football Playoff in the Rose Bowl against Alabama, and routed the Crimson Tide 38-3, finally earning that first Rose Bowl victory. The Hoosiers won their semifinal game in the Peach Bowl in a rematch with Oregon, sending the Ducks home with a 56-22 loss, and it was on to the College Football Championship game against Miami on January 19th.

Indiana had a 10-0 halftime lead, but Miami was far from finished. Mark Fletcher Jr. scored on a 57 yard touchdown run to make it 10-7. Indiana’s Isaiah Jones blocked a punt deep in Miami territory and recovered it for a touchdown and the Hoosiers were up 17-7 after the third quarter.

Fletcher scored his second touchdown of the game on the first play of the fourth quarter to bring the Hurricanes to within three points. With 9:18 left, Mendoza scored on a 12 yard run and it was 24-14 Indiana. Malachi Toney, who had 10 catches for 122 yards answered with a 22 yard TD reception to once again bring the Hurricanes to within three. With 1:42 left, Nico Radicic put the Hoosiers up by six, with a 35 yard field goal. But Miami wasn’t finished and was driving down the field when Jamari Sharpe of Indiana intercepted a Carson Beck pass at the Indiana six yard line with 44 seconds left to preserve the 27-21 Indiana victory. The Hoosiers finished the season 16-0 and National Champions.