Aside from it being one of the most unlikely national championship games, it is one full of feel-good story lines. Unless you are living under a rock, you are well aware of the Indiana Hoosiers story. This program has gone from the losingest program in college football to being one game away from arguably one of the most impressive single seasons in college football history.
It is no longer an underdog story, as you really cannot call a team that has beaten Ohio State, destroyed Alabama, and embarrassed Oregon for a second time in the Peach Bowl an underdog. What Curt Cignetti has developed in two years in Bloomington is going to go down as one of the greatest stories in college football history.
Fernando Mendoza's story is, for lack of a better term, nothing short of a Hollywood movie. He has gone from an average quarterback at Cal to a Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback and more than likely the number one pick in the 2026 NFL Draft. On top of that, he is going home to Miami in hopes of capping off one of the most amazing seasons by raising a national championship trophy in barely over a week from now.
This man literally grew up just a few miles from the University of Miami and is so Miami that his dad played on the same high school football team as Mario Cristobal. As much as it is a home game for the Hurricanes, it is one for Mendoza as well. And honestly, at this point, it would seem crazy to bet against him and this Indiana team at this point.
Speaking of Cristobal, this is a man who returned to his alma mater to return The U back to glory. The last twenty years have been pretty dismal for the proud program full of history and NFL greats. Honestly, it seemed like maybe nobody was going to be able to get this program back on track to the days of when Mario suited up for the Canes.
Now he has this program on the verge of their sixth national championship in one of the most improbable runs ever. This was a team most considered dead after losses to Louisville and SMU, but they kept their hopes alive, putting together a very dominant end of the season, which allowed them to finally pass Notre Dame to get into the playoff.
They went from a team that most thought shouldn't be in the playoffs to one that went on the road to College Station and won, knocked off Ohio State in a pretty dominant performance, and most recently survived Ole Miss in arguably the best Semifinal game of the playoff era. Now they get to return to their home stadium for the first time since mid-November with the national championship on the line.
If that isn't enough, you get the whole Carson Beck storyline. A man whose career ended at Georgia with a neck injury in last year's SEC Championship Game. Nobody really saw him as an NFL quarterback at that point, but the Hurricanes saw him as the one they needed to bring in to replace Cam Ward.
Beck has had an amazing final season in college football, overcoming his injuries and being able to show that he was definitely far from the problem at Georgia. In fact, he was able to beat the team that knocked off his former team en route to this national championship appearance. He has changed his whole legacy with the season he has had at Miami and the playoff run.
A win over the Hoosiers would cement him as a college football legend in Coral Gables and in general. As dominant as Indiana has been most of the season, if there is a team that is going to end their run, it is Miami. Hollywood could not have written a better script for next Monday night's game, and no matter how the game ends, it seems like this is one fans will be talking about for a while.