The College Football National Championship has been decided, and for the first time, the “natty” is coming home to Bloomington.
On Monday, 1/19, the #1 ranked Indiana Hoosiers defeated the Miami Hurricanes, in a 27-21 contest. Indiana ended the season with an undefeated record of 16-0, the first team to have that record since the 1894 Yale Bulldogs. Yes, you read that right. For 132 years, no team had won 16 games in a college football season.
The Hoosiers, led by Heisman-winner QB Fernando Mendoza, have cemented themselves as one of the best College Football teams of all time, joining the likes of the 2019 LSU Football team, with NFL Draft prospects and high final scores all throughout the season.
Mendoza is projected to be the first overall pick in the upcoming 2026 NFL Draft, which would drop him into a struggling Las Vegas Raiders organization. Should the Raiders pass up on him, the New York Jets would almost certainly draft him, dropping him into an arguably worse situation than in Las Vegas.
The Miami Hurricanes were ranked #10 in the nation before the game, and they were led by QB Carson Beck, who already has two CFP National Championships, with Georgia (2021, 2022). Beck is projected to be anywhere between a late round-two pick to a day 2 pick.
The most memorable moment of the game was on 4th & 5 in the redzone, on the Miami 12 yard-line, Mendoza escapes the pocket, rolls out, runs past the line of scrimmage, gets hit by four or five defenders, and goes airborne and extends into the endzone, barely breaking the plane. The still image of Mendoza stretching into the endzone with three defenders on him quickly went viral.
After the game, Mendoza said “I had to go airborne, I would die for my team, whatever they need me to do.”
Mendoza, who grew up in the shadows of Hard Rock Stadium, had been a life-long Miami Hurricanes fan, as has his family. But when he wasn’t recruited by them, he took his own path, and it led him home. About playing close to home, he said: “I was a two-star recruit coming out of high school, I got declined a walk-on offer to the University of Miami, full-circle moment here playing in Miami in front of all the friends and family.”
Mendoza’s brother, Alberto was the backup QB for the Hoosiers this season, and he just announced his transfer from Indiana to Georgia Tech, citing opportunity as his main reason.
Other than Fernando Mendoza’s aerial attack on the endzone, the championship game went off rather normal, and Indiana brought home the hardware back to campus.
With the NFL Draft just 91 days away, the football world looks ahead, with many fans already doing mock drafts, and forming opinions on what their team should do over the offseason.
The Indiana Hoosiers are the 2026 College Football National Champions!
