National Championship Recap: Indiana Wins it All

What a way to end this college football season, with an incredible game to end it all. The Indiana Hoosiers have won their first national championship in the team’s history.

The game had a lot of crazy moments, some edge of seat action, and was never boring. Everything the national championship should be.

Firstly, talking about the winners:

Indiana Hoosiers

The champions got their points from random places. The Heisman winner, Fernando Mendoza, only threw for 186 yards and no touchdowns, BUT he had an incredible rushing touchdown where he bounced from hit to hit before going horizontal in a dive that will be in college football history for the score. Riley Nowakowski hopped into the fullback role to punch in a score, but Indiana’s other points came from a couple of field goals and then a punt block return for a touchdown. While it might seem random in today’s game, it feels surprisingly old school, in my opinion.

It was a gritty football game all around, Mendoza was bloodied and bruised walking out of it, but he was one tough dude. Also tough were the two running backs; Kaelon Black and Roman Hemby. Blak had 79 rushing yards and Hemby had 60. Omar Cooper Jr. and Charlie Becker led the receiving corps which included some incredible catches in key moments. Becker and Cooper have incredible hands and can jump higher than you might expect.

However, it all came down to the Indiana defense at the end of the game. When Miami and Carson Beck were leading down the field and looking to score the game-winning touchdown, Jamari Sharpe came in clutch to get the interception that effectively ended the game, and deservedly celebrated by taking his helmet off (even though he got a pointless penalty for it.)

Miami (FL) Hurricanes

By all counts, Miami played just as good and hard as Indiana. It was truly an even matchup but the issues Miami had were too many costly penalties in clutch moments as well as turnovers. The Hurricanes just had too many possessions that were stopped by the Indiana defense. Yet, they were still in it and Beck had the opportunity to lead a game-winning drive that unfortunately led to the interception that sealed it. I don’t think it was any mark on Beck as he threw for 232 yards and one touchdown, but they were just outplayed at the end there.

Mark Fletcher Jr. had the game of his long which included a career-long 57 yard touchdown. Overall, he had 112 yards and two touchdowns. Malachi Toney also had yet another incredible game with 10 receptions, 122 receiving yards and one touchdown with one of those plays being for 41 yards.

One of the crucial moments was a missed field goal by Carter Davis that doinked off the upright. Had he made that field goal, all Miami would’ve needed was another field goal to tie it. It just shows how one moment can change the game and this is of course including moments like Mendoza’s fourth down run where he scored a touchdown off a dive.

Keep an eye out for my full top 25 recap of this season!