On Monday Night, Miami and Indiana will battle in Miami for the College Football Playoff National Championship. Coming into the season, this would've been seen as an unlikely matchup as nobody believed in the Hoosiers last season while Miami's defense was so bad in 2024 that it was hard to see the unit transforming overnight.
Somehow, Miami and Indiana have been able to pass through the blue bloods and reach a point where they're the two best teams in college football. The truth is that college football's great equalizer, the Transfer Portal helped both teams get to this point.
The National Championship shows how quickly the Transfer Portal can change everything
This offseason, both teams needed quarterbacks as they felt their rosters were good enough to compete with the right signal callers. Miami went out and landed the highest ranked transfer QB in Carson Beck, and while he's been up and down at times, he's taken his team to the Championship. Indiana on the other hand took a gamble on Cal's Fernando Mendoza, and he's taken a massive leap to become the best player in the Country.
When Notre Dame simply had too many great offensive linemen for all of them to start, Pat Coogan was the casualty of the numbers crunch. His addition to Indiana may be just as important as Mendoza's for what he's done with this offensive line winning the Rose Bowl Offensive MVP to give him much deserved recognition.
Curt Cignetti needed to go out and replace several key weapons for his offense to succeed this season. Picking up Maryland's Roman Hemby proved to be key giving the Hoosiers a 1,000 yard running back.
Miami already had Mark Fletcher Jr lined up to take over, but Mario Cristobal added North Dakota State star CharMar Brown. While Brown hasn't had the biggest role, the Canes may not be here if not for the way he's run the ball late in games especially on this Playoff run against Ohio State and Ole Miss.
The Hurricanes biggest plays against Ole Miss came from a transfer in Keelan Marion who went for 107 yards and a touchdown. Former Saint Francis and James Madison transfer Elijah Sarratt has been the Hoosiers best receiver in back-to-back seasons.
The biggest reason that Miami is playing for a National Championship is the way that they attacked the Transfer Portal to build this defense after the group let Cam Ward down last season. Keionte Scott, Jakobe Thomas, Ethan O'Connor, and Zechariah Poyser have transformed the secondary. Mohamed Toure may have saved the season against Texas A&M laying it all on the line to jar a Marcel Reed pass to the endzone free.
Curt Cignetti didn't have nearly as many holes to fill on defense, but you can't say enough about what Stephen Daley, Kellan Wyatt, and Dominique Ratcliff have meant to this defensive line that's been the driving force behind the unit's success.
If you're looking at Miami and Indiana playing for the National Championship, and trying to figure out how to get there, they've shown you the answer. The teams have shown that you don't even need to add the big name transfers, but the right transfers as it could change everything.