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Winners and Losers from the 2026 College Football National Championship
This year's college football national championship was a classic from two teams that proved they're the best teams in the nation with their College Football Playoff run.
Indiana and Miami gave us a memorable finale Monday night with coach Curt Cignetti's storybook team finishing with just one more pivotal punch than the Hurricanes in an ultimate 27-21 win. The victory gave the historical-doormat Hoosiers their first football national championship ever.
Forget the Hardwood Hoosiers—there's a new game in state known for hoops, and this national championship game felt like it could be the origin of a dynastic run.
Fans flocked and turned Hard Rock Stadium—Miami's home field—crimson. Their team fed off that energy with some pivotal second-half moments to pull out the win.
From a Mikail Kamara blocked punt recovered to a touchdown to some amazing plays by Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza, IU found their heroics everywhere. Mendoza especially converted a pair of key back-shoulder throws to Charlie Becker, as well as painted a picture with a fourth-down touchdown scramble for the ages, in the win.
Miami native Jamari Sharpe intercepted an underthrown Carson Beck pass with 44 seconds left to seal the win.
The Hoosiers needed every bit of those massive moments to get past a Hurricanes team that woke up in the fourth quarter to come up just a bit short.
Here are the winners and losers from the national championship game.
Winner: Historic Hoosiers
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Now, Indiana coach Curt Cignetti doesn't need anybody to Google him—as he so famously quipped at his introductory press conference.
Everybody in the nation knows he wins, and he may be doing it for the foreseeable future in Bloomington.
When Indiana hired him away from James Madison a couple of years ago, Cignetti told reporters in the press conference why the Hoosiers hired him. "I win," he said with almost cinematic pause. "Google me."
The turnaround, though, has been something that could have been scripted in Hollywood. Honestly, college football hasn't ever seen anything like it.
This is a program that was the first in the Football Bowl Subdivision to reach 700 losses in history. They were a perennial last-place finisher in the Big Ten. Just having a winning season would be considered a massive accomplishment.
However, through shrewd portal adds, an incredible work ethic and becoming a team that simply was the most disciplined in the nation and never beat itself, IU went 11-2 last year and made the playoffs. This season, they just capped a 16-0 record and the program's first national title.
"We won the national championship at Indiana University," a smiling Cignetti told ESPN after the game. "It can be done."
Cignetti seemingly never doubted, bet on himself, and now the Hoosiers are the class of the country.
Loser: Late Miami Offensive Surge
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It took far too long for quarterback Carson Beck and his stable of incredible Miami offensive playmakers to get going, but once they did, they were nearly impossible for Indiana to stop.
Unfortunately for coach Mario Cristobal's Hurricanes, the frenzy happened just a little too late. They just didn't wake up in time to come back and win their sixth national championship.
Carson Beck steered the U into Indiana territory with no timeouts as the clock wound down, behind by just six points, but he threw a last-heave interception into the hands of Jamari Sharpe to end any hopes.
The way Miami had been moving the ball, everybody wearing crimson had to be sweating. Mark Fletcher Jr. scored on the first play of the fourth quarter from 3 yards out to set the tone for a phenomenal finish.
Beck led a five-play, 91-yard drive in just 2:14 after a 12-play Indiana touchdown drive to answer the Hoosiers and show the nation they weren't done. After struggling for most of three quarters on offense, Miami caught fire.
From Fletcher's running to Malachi Toney's explosive catches to Beck's final frenzy after an awful start, Miami made it a game. But it just wasn't enough in the end as the Hoosiers fought them off.
Winner: Mendoza Magic
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If you ever wondered why Fernando Mendoza is a Heisman Trophy winner and coach Curt Cignetti is the best coach in college football right now, they both showed you why on a game-winning sequence in Monday's national championship win over Miami.
With the Hoosiers up by just three points with 9:18 left, Cignetti elected to roll the dice on a pair of fourth-and-5 calls with the game on the line.
On the first conversion, Mendoza dropped back and fired a back-shoulder pass to star receiver Charlie Becker, who made an acrobatic 19-yard catch and stayed inbounds to the 18-yard line to keep the drive going.
Then, when it appeared the Hurricanes were going to hold IU to a field goal, Cignetti sent out the field-goal team originally, called timeout and sent Mendoza back out there.
On a brilliant call— a designed quarterback draw—the senior signal-caller weaved his way up the middle of the field, was hit by Jakobe Thomas well before the goal line, kept his balance and amazingly stretched the ball out over the goal line for a touchdown that gave his Hoosiers a 10-point lead.
It was Mendoza magic at its finest and a movie moment for the champion Hoosiers. His "Heisman Moment" came multiple times throughout this season, but that was his finest.
Loser: Miami's Underdog Story
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It's hard to believe essentially everybody in the college football world questioned whether the Miami Hurricanes belonged in the College Football Playoff.
Boy, they showed us.
At no point throughout a ridiculous four-game run did coach Mario Cristobal's Hurricanes look overmatched. Most of the time, they were the aggressor, the defense was a force of nature that terrorized quarterbacks galore, and the offense even made important plays.
Folks everywhere scoffed when the committee wound up leap-frogging Miami over a Notre Dame team that had been ranked ahead of them the week before when neither team played in championship week. Nevermind the Hurricanes beat the Irish head-to-head, nobody could make sense of that move.
After the Hurricanes snuck in as the 10 seed, though, they went to battle, shutting down Texas A&M at College Station in a 10-3 win. They silenced Ohio State with a 10-point win on New Year's Eve, then used a late-minute drive to upset Ole Miss, 31-27.
Even playing unbeaten and dominant Indiana in the national title game and after being shut out in the first half, Carson Beck and the 'Canes had the ball with a chance to win at the end before throwing the season-ending interception.
This team belongs, and you'd better believe Cristobal's program will be back the way they're recruiting and competing.
Winner: Mikail Kamara's Big Play
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Last season, Indiana edge-rusher Mikail Kamara was one of the faces of the Hoosiers program, one of the many players who came with Curt Cignetti from James Madison and had an explosive start.
Then, this year, despite IU's resurgence, Kamara largely disappeared.
But in a massive moment of the biggest game of the year, the senior made a key play deep in Hurricanes territory, rushing around the left side to charge after a Dylan Joyce punt. Joyce weaved right directly into Kamara, who stuck his arm up, blocked the punt, and it was recovered by Isaiah Jones in the end zone for a touchdown.
It was the first blocked punt recovered for a touchdown in College Football Playoff history, and the breathing room was necessary for an Indiana team that was leaking oil.
At the time, the special-teams heroics extended IU's sweaty-palmed lead to 10 points, and even though the Hurricanes responded with a touchdown of their own on the next drive, it was a key play at a time when IU's offense was sputtering.
For Kamara, it was redemption. Following a junior season where he had 47 tackles, 10 sacks, two forced fumbles and three fumble recoveries, he had just 30 tackles and a couple of sacks this year.
When it mattered most, though, Kamara surged into the spotlight.
Loser: No-Calls on Indiana's Second Drive
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Indiana's first scoring drive was a thing of beauty, navigating 12 plays and winding up with a Nico Radicic 34-yard field goal to give Indiana its first score of the game.
Quarterback Fernando Mendoza trotted off the field, but he didn't do so without a bloody lip following some questionable, big-time hits from Miami defenders.
The worst occurred when Hurricanes safety Jakobe Thomas blew up Mendoza after he'd handed off the ball, getting him underneath the chin strap on what looked on replay like a borderline targeting call. No flag was thrown, and cameras caught IU coach Curt Cignetti flinging his arms and pleading for a call.
Things settled on the field afterward, but Cignetti was still hot walking off it at halftime. He obviously thought the crew sleepwalked through that series—calling out not just that Thomas hit but two others.
"Well, it's three personal fouls on the quarterback not called on one drive that need to be called because they're obvious personal fouls," Cignetti told ESPN's Holly Rowe walking off the field at halftime. "I'm all for letting them play, but when you cross the line, you've got to call it. They were black-and-white calls."
The Hoosiers kept their composure, but missed calls continued with a pair of egregious no-calls on obvious Miami pass interferences on third-down plays on pivotal second-half drives.
Winner: Indiana's Not-So-Fancy Formula
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Indiana's offense is more punch than pizzazz, more meticulous than mesmerizing and more fireproof than firepower. But it all sure does work to perfection.
Don't mistake it—the Hoosiers are much more than a death-by-1,000-papercuts effective. They eventually bring out the dagger, and sever their opponents' will. That's what it looked like they were going to do in the first half before Miami's offense woke up.
When the Hurricanes' cornerbacks played 5-8 yards off the Hoosiers receivers, Fernando Mendoza routinely took the 5- and 7-yard passes given. Once, when they pinned their ears off the edges on third-and-8, Curt Cignetti brilliantly called a draw to Kaelon Black that went for 21 yards.
The bag of tricks included a handoff to tight end Riley Nowakowski on third-and-goal from the 1 lined up as a fullback for IU's first touchdown of the game.
One first-half scoring drive went 12 plays and 55 yards; the other went 14 plays and 85 yards. Both chewed up more than 6 minutes of clock, resulted in a 10-point deficit for Miami and were vintage Hoosiers.
In the second half, they had a 12-play, 75-yard touchdown drive that chewed up 5:39 and a field-goal drive that gnawed another 4:55.
It wasn't always pretty, but, boy, that final score is—and so is that national championship trophy.
