Miami Hurricanes: Title game loss to Indiana is ‘definitely going to fuel us’
The somber aura in the locker room set the scene. The hushed silence spoke with more power than the words that eventually followed.
The Miami Hurricanes were hurting. They came so close, so agonizingly close, to that national championship that has eluded them for nearly a quarter century.
But after a season of defying odds and critics, of playing with their backs against the wall and finding ways to prove that they belong in the national conversation, the Hurricanes fell just short of that ultimate goal, of that national championship.
The 27-21 loss to the No. 1 and undefeated Indiana Hoosiers on Monday night at Hard Rock Stadium will linger for a while for the No. 10 Hurricanes, the last at-large team to make the 12-team College Football Playoff field but found itself in the title game after being three higher-seeded teams along the way.
But it will also serve as motivation as the Hurricanes look to prove this season wasn’t a fluke.
“It’s definitely going to fuel us,” said running back Mark Fletcher Jr., who scored two touchdowns in the second half to cut the Hoosiers’ lead to three points each time. “You go back to work if you’re worth a damn as a competitor. It hurts, but Indiana was a better team today. The margin for errors is so small versus an excellent team like that. We didn’t make it happen today, but I’m so proud of everybody. The boys who are coming back, they know the message. We’re going right back to work.”
The Hurricanes worked all season to get to this point, a place where no one thought they would be after they dropped their second game of the season on Nov. 1 to SMU.
They plummeted to No. 18 in the rankings and had to go on a wild run over the final four weeks of the season just to have a chance.
But that’s all they needed — a chance to prove themselves, a chance to show that they truly are among the country’s best.
The College Football Playoff selection committee gave them that chance.. Miami responded with wins against No. 7 Texas A&M, No. 2 and defending national champion Ohio State and No. 6 Ole Miss.
“When they counted us out, we just got together,” linebacker Wesley Bissainthe said. “We went on an amazing streak throughout the last part of the season and the playoffs and we made it here.”
But making it here, making it to the title game, was only part of the goal.
They wanted to win it, something the Hurricanes haven’t done since the 2001 season.
They came oh-so-close despite being far from perfect on Monday against an Indiana team where perfection is almost required to win.
The Hoosiers, led by Heisman Trophy winner and Miami Columbus High alumnus Fernando Mendoza, jumped out to a 10-0 halftime lead because the Hurricanes’ 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.
Miami cut its deficit to three points on three occasions in the second half on a pair of Fletcher rushing touchdowns and a Malachi Toney touchdown on a Carson Beck shovel pass, but Indiana responded each time with a blocked punt for a touchdown and two fantastic, gutsy Mendoza-led drives by the Hoosiers offense.
UM had a chance to put together a winning drive with 1:42 left to play trailing by six, but the game ended with Beck’s pass intended for Keelan Marion being intercepted by Indiana’s Jamari Sharpe with 44 seconds left.
“Just couldn’t finish the job,” Bissainthe said.
Added Beck: “It hurts really bad, but it was a hell of a season.”
This season was simply the latest monumental stepping stone in the program’s rise in four seasons under Mario Cristobal. He inherited a program that had been at a standstill for decades, far from the standard that he knows the Hurricanes are capable of.
And the slow build — assembling the roster from the line of scrimmage outward, stacking recruiting classes and acing transfer portal additions, hiring the right coaches — slowly saw results.
A 5-7 season in 2022 turned into 7-6 in 2023 and then 10-3 in 2024 before Miami finally broke through for a playoff run this season, the final year for the majority of players who had been with Cristobal since the start of his tenure.
“They had the guts, the faith and the trust to look at a place that was a complete mess and say, ‘I’m going to be the person, I’m going to be a man of action, and I’m going to make things real, and I’m going to make the University of Miami a prominent program once again and we’re going to win and we’re going to win big and we’re going to change the culture,’” Cristobal said. “That’s not easy. A lot of people look at that, they shy away from it. These guys are legitimate big-time human beings. Going to be awesome fathers and husbands and leaders of the community, way beyond football. I think everybody associated with the University of Miami and really even if you’re a college football fan, you’ve got to be fans of these guys because these guys certainly, they represent the way it’s supposed to be done.”
And they will continue working until the job is done. They’ll continue pressing forward.
That’s the only way.
The Hurricanes are losing a lot of talent — Beck, receivers CJ Daniels and Marion, All-American right tackle Francis Maugioa (and most of the starting offensive line for that matter), edge rushing duo Rueben Bain Jr. and Akheem Mesidor, and linebackers Mo Toure and Bissainthe among the headliners — but still has a strong core intact pending players entering the transfer portal, which they have until Saturday to do.
“We set a standard here for the young guys,” Bissainthe said. “They’re gonna be all right. They’re gonna be all right.”
Added Mauigoa: “Next year, we’re coming back here. Next year, we’ll be back in the national championship. They’re gonna finish this thing off. I believe in my young guys. I believe in this team. I believe in this coaching staff. We were just short today. Next year, we’re coming back strong.”
This story was originally published January 20, 2026 at 11:46 AM.
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