Indiana wins first college football title as Hurricanes’ comeback bid falls short
Keelan Marion was fighting back tears in the locker room as he lamented what could have been, if he had turned his head around, if he had done just a little bit more.
With the Miami Hurricanes’ season on the line — 48 seconds left in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game, down by six points and 41 yards from the end zone — quarterback Carson Beck threw a deep ball to his right, intended for Marion.
The wide receiver didn’t turn around to see where the ball was going until it was too late. Indiana Hoosiers cornerback Jamari Sharpe, a Miami Northwestern alumnus, jumped the route and intercepted Beck’s underthrown pass.
With that, top-ranked Indiana won its first ever football national title with a 27-21 win over the No. 10 Hurricanes on Monday night at Hard Rock Stadium in front of an announced crowd of 67,227.
“Made a mistake,” Marion said. “It’s all on me.”
The Hurricanes came oh-so-close to their sixth national championship and first in 24 years.
But just like the rest of the college football world this season, they had no answer for the Hoosiers, who completed an undefeated season at 16-0. Miami’s season ends at 13-3.
“It really hurts and it’s hard, the way that it ended,” Beck said.
It was almost a storybook ending — Beck and Miami pulling off heroics for the second consecutive game to close out his lone season with the Hurricanes as a champion.
Three times UM got within three points in the second half and then had the ball with 1:42 left on the clock for the chance to finish off the comeback.
It came up short.
“It’s not the result we wanted,” Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal said. “Credit to Indiana; they’re a great football team. But to these guys right here, I couldn’t be more proud to be associated with them. I love them. They’re absolutely incredible human beings, competitors, resilient, and I want to thank them and the rest of their teammates. It’s a tough one. Tough one to have to eat, but we will. That’s it.”
Miami hoped to use its sheer size to manhandle Indiana and dominate both lines of scrimmage.
Instead, the Hurricanes trailed 10-0 at halftime because the offense couldn’t do anything — UM had 69 total yards, was 0 for 6 on third down and saw its only true scoring chance end in a missed 50-yard field-goal attempt — and Indiana did just enough on two of its first five drives to get through Miami’s vaunted defense.
A 12-play, 55-yard drive late in the first quarter ended in a Nicolas Radicic 34-yard field goal for a 3-0 lead.
It became 10-0 with 6:13 left in the first half on a Riley Nowakowski 1-yard run at the end of a 14-play, 85-yard drive aided by a pair of Miami third-down penalties (OJ Frederique defensive pass interference and Rueben Bain Jr. offsides) that helped keep the drive alive.
Miami played markedly better in the second half, but Indiana responded to each of the Hurricanes’ punches.
Mark Fletcher Jr. breaks up the shutout with a 57-yard run to cut the deficit to 10-7 with 11:06 left in the third quarter? Indiana’s Isaiah Jones blocks a Dylan Joyce punt, with Mikail Kamara falling on it in the end zone for a Hoosiers touchdown.
Fletcher scores again, this time from 3 yards out one play into the fourth quarter to once again make it a three-point game, 17-14? Mendoza orchestrates the drive of the game — a 12-play, 75-yard touchdown drive capped by a 12-yard touchdown run on fourth down, shedding tackles from UM’s Jakobe Thomas and Wesley Bissainthe before vaulting into the end zone.
Malachi Toney, the freshman phenom wide receiver, makes two spectacular plays — a 41-yard catch-and-run and the 22-yard touchdown on a shovel pass — to get back to within three points, 24-21 with 6:37 left? Indiana kicked a field goal with 1:42 left to go up by six.
And then the game-sealing interception.
Mendoza finished 16 of 27 for 186 yards and had the rushing touchdown. Beck was 19 of 32 for 232 yards, one touchdown and the interception.
It put a somber end to a breakthrough fourth season under Cristobal. The pieces were slowly put in place to get Miami to this point.
Sept. 17, 2024: Toney reclassifies to graduate from Plantation American Heritage a year early and join UM for the 2025 season.
The Hurricanes knew they had a special talent in Toney, who didn’t turn 18 until a month into the season.
But this? They probably couldn’t have expected this.
He was the ACC’s Rookie of the Year and Football Writer Association of America’s national Offensive Freshman of the Year after catching 109 passes for 1,211 yards and 10 touchdowns. This included 10 catches for 122 yards and a touchdown on Monday night.
Jan. 10, 2025: Beck announces he is transferring to Miami, giving the Hurricanes their successor to Cam Ward. Beck had initially declared for the NFL Draft after five seasons at Georgia, the final two as a starter, but his draft stock had plummeted following a poor 2024 season and the torn UCL in his right elbow sustained in the SEC Championship Game.
One more college football season and a change of scenery, he hoped, would provide a spark.
It did.
He wasn’t able to participate in spring practice because his surgically repaired elbow was still healing, but Beck quickly earned the respect of his teammates and coaches and carried it throughout the season.
“The way that this year has gone, it’s been unbelievable,” Beck said. “It’s been ups and downs, a roller coaster ride, but the way this team has been able to handle adversity and just bounce back from so many doubters and people not believing in us, it’s been pretty unbelievable.”
Jan. 11, 2025: Miami hired Corey Hetherman as defensive coordinator to replace Lance Guidry in what might be one of Cristobal’s biggest moves.
The Hurricanes’ defense kept them out of the playoff field last year because of collapses against Georgia Tech and Syracuse in the final three weeks that the offense — which pulled off heroics almost weekly in conference play — couldn’t overcome.
Heatherman, plus a slew of player additions via the transfer portal (namely defensive backs Keionte Scott, Jakobe Thomas, Ethan O’Connor, Xavier Lucas and Zechariah Poyser; linebacker Mohamed Toure; and defensive lineman David Blay), revitalized the unit. They played fast. They played with physicality. Communication, a major issue last season, improved immensely.
The result? A top-10 defense by nearly every major metric.
Aug. 31: Miami passed its first test with a 27-24 win against then-No. 6 Notre Dame to open the season. Beck threw two touchdowns, and Carter Davis hit a go-ahead 47-yard field goal with 1:04 left to play as the Hurricanes upset the Fighting Irish.
It’s a win that would eventually prove pivotal for the Hurricanes as the de facto tiebreaker with the Fighting Irish to get into the playoff field.
“Don’t count us out,” edge rusher Akheem Mesidor said. “Don’t ever count us out.”
Oct. 4: After cruising through the rest of their nonconference schedule — including wins over Bethune-Cookman, USF and Florida — Miami opened ACC play with a 28-22 road win at Florida State to improve to 5-0 and vault to No. 2 in the AP Top 25 rankings. It was Miami’s first win in Tallahassee since 2019 and first in a ranked matchup there since 2004.
Maybe — just maybe — this might finally be the year.
“We are moving forward. We’re not going back. We’re not,” Cristobal said. “We’re taking the principles and values of all those awesome teams, the physicality of those teams, the playmaking ability, the togetherness and brotherhood of those teams, and going forward and pushing Miami football to modern day football.”
Oct. 17: One game later, Miami hit its first speedbump in a 24-21 home loss to Louisville. Beck threw four interceptions, including one on the potential game-winning (or at least game-tying) drive when Miami was in field goal range.
“There’s no time to sit around and do anything but go back to work and go get better,” Cristobal said. “That’s what it takes. That’s what real men do. And that’s what we have to do. That’s what we’re going to do.”
Miami responded the next weekend with a 42-7 win over Stanford that had the potential to right the ship.
But then…
Nov. 1: Miami lost 26-20 in overtime to SMU for its second defeat in three weeks. Just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong.
Penalties? Miami had 12.
Other self-inflicted mistakes? How about five drops and a pair of Carson Beck interceptions, including at the goal line in the first overtime turnovers.
It led to what could have been a crushing, season-impacting loss.
Could have.
“Just stay together,” Beck said then. “We can’t separate.”
Nov. 29: Miami responded with three convincing wins over Syracuse, NC State and Virginia Tech to set up a pivotal regular-season finale on the road against Pittsburgh.
The Hurricanes crushed the Panthers 38-7 to complete a four-game run in which it outscored opponents 151-41.
But after they missed out on the ACC Championship Game, with Duke getting the second spot in the game over Miami via a five-team tiebreaker, Miami’s fate was left in the hands of the 12-person CFP selection committee.
“We’ve shown that we can compete with anyone,” Beck said.
The committee gave the Canes a chance to prove it. Miami was the No. 10 seed in the 12-team field — the final to receive an at-large bid — because spots Nos. 11 and 12 went to Tulane and James Madison, which received automatic bids into the field as the final two of the five highest-ranked conference champions.
And they backed up the statements.
A 10-3 win over No. 7 Texas A&M in the first round.
A 24-14 win over No. 2 Ohio State in the quarterfinal at the Cotton Bowl.
A 31-27 win over Ole Miss in the semifinal at the Fiesta Bowl.
But the Hurricanes couldn’t finish the job Monday. They came one win away from the ultimate goal.
“We set a standard here,” an emotional linebacker Wesley Bissainthe said. “They’re gonna be all right. They’re gonna be all right.”
This story was originally published January 19, 2026 at 11:17 PM.
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