MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — As heavy cigar smoke wafted through the room and celebratory Hoosier beers cracked open, a song started blaring inside the celebratory Indiana locker room.
With cigars in hand, newly crowned national champion Indiana players smiled and danced as Bankroll Fresh’s “Take Over Your Trap” blared inside the bowels of Hard Rock Stadium.
“Walk in your trap and take over your trap,” the lyrics went.
There was no coincidence here.
Indiana just beat Miami inside its home stadium, 27-21, to win a historic national championship. The traditional Big Ten football bottom-dweller knocked off “The U” with all those famous former players like Michael Irvin, Ray Lewis and Ed Reed having to watch in horror. Indiana not only beat the Hurricanes on the field but in the stands, too.
“We definitely flipped Miami’s home stadium,” left tackle Carter Smith said. “These fans have done an amazing job rallying behind us.”
Two years ago, this felt impossible.
Indiana winning a national championship … in football?! The losingest program in college football history?! And doing it in as dominant fashion as possible as it dispatched powerhouse programs Ohio State, Alabama, Oregon and Miami for a perfect 16-0 record that will go down as one of the all-time great teams. It’s the greatest turnaround story in sports history.
Indiana didn’t just take over Miami’s trap.
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Indiana wrested control over college football with a quirky, 64-year old coach who took the most improbable path possible to joining the exclusive club as a national champion. Only Curt Cignetti would have left an Alabama program coming off a national championship for Division-II Indiana University of Pennsylvania. The journey from IUP to Elon to James Madison and finally, Indiana for college football immortality will prompt a cottage industry of books, documentaries and commemorative memorabilia. He took the road less traveled, and forever changed college football in the process.
“Don’t put no limitations on this,” receiver Elijah Sarratt said. “Indiana isn’t just little old Indiana anymore. We’re here to stay.”
This wasn’t a team that did it the traditional way through five-star prospects. CBS Sports’ Bud Elliott’s famous blue-chip ratio, which has correctly predicted since 2013 the teams capable of winning a national championship, finally busted. On paper, Indiana should not have been capable of winning a national championship with only seven players rated as four-star prospects coming out of high school.
“Are there eight first-round draft choices on this team? Probably not, no, there aren’t,” Cignetti said. “But this team, the whole was greater than the sum of its parts.”
Cignetti found value in the market inefficiencies. He built a veteran-laden team full of guys who came with him from James Madison and key transfers like quarterback Fernando Mendoza. He brought what turned out to be the nation’s best coaching staff, full of like-minded film junkies who knew exactly what Cignetti wanted in players and how to bring the best out of them once they got on campus. He capitalized on Indiana finally deciding it didn’t want to be a laughingstock in football anymore and was willing to invest significant financial resources to change that reality.
“It’s somewhat entrepreneurial in that you have to differentiate yourself and you have to stand out when people aren’t taking you seriously,” Indiana alumnus and billionaire booster Mark Cuban told CBS Sports. “That’s what it was when Cig came, and that’s exactly what he did.”
Monday night was Indiana’s toughest challenge of the College Football Playoff. After beating Alabama and Oregon by a combined score of 94-25, the Hurricanes made the Hoosiers work for it. Miami’s 1-2 punch of Rueben Bain Jr. and Akheem Mesidor battered and bloodied Indiana star quarterback Fernando Mendoza. By the end of the game, one of the men responsible for protecting Mendoza, center Pat Coogan, said he was on his third blood-soaked towel.
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Mendoza took a big shot on what looked like a late hit in the first quarter, leading to a bloodied lip. Cignetti was furious over the non-call. The Miami native never seemed to let it impact his play, however. The Heisman Trophy winner never backed down.
“He got up slow after a few of them, so it was in the back of my mind, but he’s tough as hell,” offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan told CBS Sports. “Super competitive. He’s strong enough, big enough to take on some of those blows. Just super tough.”
“When he’s out there bleeding for us,” Smith said, “we have to do the same thing for him”
There were moments when Indiana’s offensive line struggled to contain Miami’s stars, but on the biggest play of the night, they delivered. On a fourth-and-4 from Miami’s 12-yard line, the offensive line did exactly as it was asked on a quarterback draw, and Mendoza made the play of his college career, fighting his way through Miami defenders before leaping into the endzone for a 12-yard touchdown. There will be paintings and framed photographs of that Mendoza leap for years to come.
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Indiana’s perfect 16-0 season, the first of its kind, makes it three consecutive Big Ten national champions. As the game neared its finish and Miami tried to launch one final rally, Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti nervously watched alongside Indiana athletic director Scott Golson and university president Pam Whitten. When Miami quarterback Carson Beck threw the game-sealing interception, the trio exploded in celebration with big hugs. Dolson, who got his start as a student manager under Bobby Knight, wore a “I can’t believe this is real” look of wonder and pure joy on his face.
“The Big Ten postseason gauntlet continues,” an ecstatic Big Ten official said. “Three-and-oh.”
Said Sarratt: “Big Ten baby, that’s what we do. Best conference in football, man.”
Cignetti will go down as quite possibly the greatest hire in college football history for what he’s been able to accomplish in just two seasons in Bloomington.
Don’t expect Cignetti to get complacent, either. He’s too competitive, too obsessed with chasing perfection to allow himself to slip. It’s the characteristic that is most reminiscent of his former boss in Tuscaloosa, Nick Saban, who famously was so good at turning the page after a championship it was as if he hadn’t won one at all.
“I think next week when when he doesn’t have a game to prepare for, he may be miserable to be around,” tight ends coach Grant Cain told CBS Sports before the game. “He loves doing this. That’s what gets him going, what keeps him going and I think that’s one of the reasons he took this job at Indiana. He wanted one more challenge, and that’s just who he is as a person.”
Early Tuesday morning, with confetti still scattered all across Hard Rock Stadium, his mind was already turning to player draft decisions. He did, at least, allow himself a celebratory beer of Hoosier Lager.
“This was absolutely the best beer of my life,” Cignetti said,” and made me want to have another.”
