Indiana won a national title by answering every time it needed to answer

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Curt Cignetti tried to prepare us for what would happen Monday night. At first, we laughed.

“Purdue sucks!” the Indiana coach yelled 25 months ago during his first appearance at a Hoosiers basketball game. “But so does Michigan and Ohio State!”

Michigan had just won the national title. Ohio State was about to win the next one. Indiana had just gone 3-9 and fired Tom Allen.

That same week, a reporter asked Cignetti at his introductory press conference how he intended to sell his vision to recruits.

His answer?

“It’s pretty simple,” Cignetti said. “I win. Google me.”

Google Curt Cignetti today and the first entry will declare him not only a winner but a national champion.

With a 27-21 win against Miami in the national title game in the Hurricanes’ home stadium, Cignetti completed one of the most amazing turnarounds in the history of American sports. He took over the program with the most losses in college football history and in two short years turned it into the nation’s best program.

It’s fitting that he did it in part by briefly breaking the will of a coach trying to complete a similar, if slightly less astounding, turnaround at his alma mater. Against anyone else, Miami’s Mario Cristobal goes for that fourth-and-2 late in the first half from the Indiana 32-yard line. He doesn’t trot out his kicker to try a 50-yard field goal even though his team had made only one of five attempts longer than 40 yards during this season’s College Football Playoff.

But that’s what Cignetti’s Hoosiers do to opponents. They sap their bravado. They dash their hopes. They break them. And then if the opponent fights back and refuses to go down, the Hoosiers keep answering — again and again until the job is finished.

When Miami kicker Carter Davis took the field following a timeout in the waning seconds of the second quarter, every Miami fan gulped and the Indiana fans — a group that outnumbered the home team’s crowd — smiled knowing smiles.

The mental and physical pummeling had started a few minutes earlier when Indiana had the ball. Miami edge rusher Rueben Bain Jr. jumped offsides on a third-and-12 play where Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza’s pass ultimately fell incomplete.

Indiana has punished opponent mistakes all season, and this occasion was no different. Gifted a third-and-7, Indiana’s line bashed open a hole that allowed Kaelon Black to run for 20 yards.

A few plays later, Indiana lined up in the I-formation on third-and-1 with tight end Riley Nowakowski at fullback. Miami called timeout. Did Cignetti and offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan dig back into the playbook?

Nope. 

The Hoosiers came out of the timeout in the same formation, essentially saying, ‘We know you can’t stop this.’ Tackle Carter Smith, lined up as a tight end, motioned behind the right guard. With the 313-pound Smith pushing a guard-center combo block from behind, Mendoza handed off to Nowakowski and Nowakowski crashed over the goal line.

On the ensuing Miami possession, the Hurricanes converted a fourth-and-1 and then found themselves facing that fourth-and-2. The analytics and the manalytics screamed go for it.

But a team that made its bones battering teams with its offensive line on crucial short-yardage plays decided to take a high-risk kick rather than run into the teeth of the Indiana defense again.

Carter Davis doinked the kick off the right upright. Had Miami converted the first down, the Hurricanes might have scored a touchdown or kicked an easier field goal as the half ended.

Instead, they were down 10. So even after Miami’s Mark Fletcher Jr. ripped off a 54-yard touchdown run early in the third quarter, Indiana still had a cushion because the Hoosiers had scared Miami into trying a field goal.

A few minutes later, Indiana broke the game open when Mikail Kamara blocked a Dylan Joyce punt and Isaiah Jones recovered for a touchdown. Once again, the Hoosiers punished a mistake.

That provided the cushion to withstand another Miami touchdown drive. Fletcher scored on a 3-yard run that once again put Miami within three.

On Indiana’s next possession, the Hoosiers faced fourth-and-5 from the Miami 37-yard line. It wasn’t quite the decision Cristobal faced in the second quarter because there was much more time on the clock, but there was never a doubt what Cignetti would choose. After a timeout, Mendoza hit Charlie Becker with a back-shoulder throw along the right sideline. Moments later, Indiana faced fourth-and-4 from the Miami 12-yard line.

Miami native Mendoza pinballed through tacklers to pass the line to gain and then dove for a touchdown. Once again, the Hoosiers had snatched hope away.

But once again, Miami refused to quit. Receiver Malachi Toney danced through Indiana defenders for a 22-yard touchdown that cut Indiana’s lead to 24-21 with 6:32 remaining. So the Hoosiers began marching again. Mendoza and Becker made another back-shoulder connection to convert a third-and-7, and the Hoosiers eventually added a 35-yard Nicolas Radicic field goal.

Miami had a chance to win the game one last drive, but a Jamari Sharpe interception solidified the Indiana win.

Athletic directors around the country likely are kicking themselves for the mistake of ignoring Cignetti when he was winning at Division II Indiana University of Pennsylvania or FCS Elon. It wasn’t until he brought James Madison from the FCS to the FBS and kept right on winning that a power conference team took notice.

And while Cignetti knew what lay ahead when Indiana hired him two years ago, he wasn’t sure if the Hoosiers’ beaten-down fans were ready to believe.

“We had pretty much won championships year-in and year-out, and doom and gloom on the Indiana side,” Cignetti said Saturday. “That’s kind of why I got out there a little bit the way I did. I knew I was out on a limb. I had to find out if the fan base was dead or on life support.”

The heart monitor was still beeping. Cignetti resuscitated those fans quickly, winning his first 10 games en route to an 11-2 debut season in 2024. But when he went out on that limb and asked everyone to Google him, he wasn’t picturing holding up a national title trophy as confetti fell.

“I had a lot of confidence in myself and the staff because we had had success,” Cignetti said. “That’s why I took the job. But I can’t say I ever thought this far ahead.”

He thought at first about developing a roster bolstered by players he’d brought from James Madison who he knew could succeed in the Big Ten. Players like linebacker Aiden Fisher, cornerback D’Angelo Ponds and receiver Elijah Sarratt could be stars anywhere, Cignetti believed.

After losing to Notre Dame in the first round of the 2024 CFP, Cignetti went back to work on the roster. He knew what kind of players he wanted. Mendoza, the former Cal quarterback who also was pursued by Miami and Georgia, topped the list. Pat Coogan, who started at center during Notre Dame’s run to the national title game but had been squeezed out of a starting spot when another player got healthy, clicked with Cignetti during a phone conversation as Coogan drove home to the Chicago suburbs from South Bend.

Cignetti wasn’t assembling the sexiest roster in America. But he was assembling a crew of experienced, tough, like-minded people who seemed willing to embrace a process-oriented mindset that focused on dominating the task at hand rather than dreaming about trophies in the future.

So when everyone asks how Cignetti and company turned the program that couldn’t win into the program that won it all, there is nothing mystical about the answer. 

“Everyone wants to know what’s the secret,” Indiana center Coogan said. “There is no secret. The secret is in the work. The secret is in the prep. There is no magic pill to take. There’s no secret book we read that gives us all the keys to success. You have to put in the prep, put in the hours. I know that sounds cliche, but at the end of the day, that’s really what it’s all about.”

That’s it. That’s how Indiana became a national champion.

Don’t believe it? 

Google it.