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#301
On 1/2/2026 at 8:30 AM, Pancho said:

As do the following phrases:

“Tuddy”

“Sark is in his bag”

“Jawja”

I'm fine with 'Tuddy' when being intentionally funny, but yeah, those other two have got to go.

Edited by William Bludworth

  • Author
#302

David Ubben: Indiana is part Cinderella story, part spirit-breaking bully, and ‘the secret’s in the dirt’

ATLANTA — Cinderella wears combat boots and brass knuckles. She’s got a gold tooth, a face tattoo and a mean right hook. For most of its history, Indiana football wasn’t an underdog as much as a doormat, but its unprecedented two-year rise is nearing an inconceivable mountaintop as the Hoosiers head to Hard Rock Stadium to face Miami with a national title at stake. On Friday night, they feasted on Oregon for 60 minutes in a 56-22 win. They have been more dominant than any team in College Football Playoff history through two games, with wins over Alabama and Oregon by a combined 69 points. No other team in Playoff history has won two games by more than 55 total points.

That’s the way they like it. And they’re used to seeing opponents wrestle with the reality as it sets in that they can’t measure up. “Body language tells you a lot,” offensive lineman Kahlil Benson said. “They’re a good team, but I felt like we broke them.” When exactly that happened is a source of debate around the locker room, but there were plenty of candidates in Friday’s beatdown. Byron Baldwin delivered a big hit on the game’s opening kick. “That was a tone-setter,” offensive tackle Carter Smith said.

A play later, cornerback D’Angelo Ponds picked off Dante Moore and ran 25 yards for a touchdown. Oregon answered with a touchdown of its own, but Indiana scored the game’s next 35 points. At plenty of moments along the way, the bully smelled blood. Center Pat Coogan, the MVP of Indiana’s Rose Bowl rout over Alabama, looked across the line of scrimmage and saw an Oregon defensive front that had enough. “That’s one of the great joys in life,” Coogan said. “But it takes a lot of work to get to that point.”

Hoosiers, they are. “Hoosiers,” this isn’t. Cignetti has built a juggernaut at a place where such a thing seemed impossible for the past 139 years. In that span, the program won just two conference titles. It hadn’t won the Big Ten since Lyndon B. Johnson was president. How, exactly, a relative unknown like Cignetti arrived in Bloomington and engineered the greatest two-year coaching job in sports history is a question without a simple answer.

The best explanation is that he recruited a team full of players who embrace the Saban-esque pursuit of perfection and treat Peach Bowls the same as voluntary June workouts. “There’s no magic pill you can swallow. There’s no secret sauce,” Coogan said. “The secret’s in the dirt. The secret’s in the work.”

Indiana is an older team, with a depth chart stocked with more 20-somethings on their second or third school than teenagers learning how to do laundry and live on their own for the first time. That helps, too. The Hoosiers love slamming opponents’ faces in the dirt, but more than that, they’re the team that makes the fewest mistakes. If coaches submitted film complete with play calls for stat-keeping, it’s a safe bet Indiana would lead the nation in fewest missed assignments.

“Although social media before the year was like, ‘Oh, Cinderella story,’ we had all the internal belief in the facility behind closed doors,” Mendoza said. “And I believe that’s what helped propel us to this moment.” The Hoosiers refuse to let up. With 13 minutes left and a 27-point lead, defensive lineman Daniel Ndukwe rushed a punt and blocked it. “Once that blocked punt hit, that felt like the moment they were starting to pump the brakes,” Smith said. Cignetti, stoic and unimpressed as always from the sideline, looked on, muttering to his coaching staff on the headset.

Three plays later, Indiana was in the end zone, receiver Elijah Sarratt celebrating his second touchdown catch of the night and his seventh catch on seven targets. “We’re trying to impose our will every single game,” tight end Riley Nowakowski said. Added Smith, “That’s part of our DNA.”

A season ago, Indiana won games by 74, 38, 37, 49 and 66 points. This year, it beat teams by 47, 73, 53, 50, 45 and 53 points, including a 63-10 win over an Illinois team that was ranked in the top 10 at kickoff and finished 9-4. Now, it’s continuing that dominance in the College Football Playoff as pundits wonder where all the great teams in the sport went. “It’s something we say on the sideline all the time. Step on their throat. Finish the job,” said left guard Drew Evans.

Cignetti took over an Indiana team with five bowl bids and 11 seasons with three or fewer wins in the past 30 years. The Hoosiers went to the Playoff in Year 1 and smacked their head against the ceiling. In Year 2, they smashed through it and will be a heavy favorite on the road in a national championship game in the Hurricanes’ home stadium on Jan. 19. It’s a Disney movie on paper. But Disney doesn’t make movies about Darth Vader choking out hapless opponents with The Force all season. “Plucky overachievers” couldn’t be a less apt descriptor of Cignetti’s smart, speedy, smashmouth ballerinas hauling in tiptoe back-shoulder catches along the sideline.

Indiana is 14th nationally in yards per carry. Mendoza led the nation in passer rating and has eight touchdown passes and five incompletions in two Playoff games. The defense is ninth in yards per play allowed and second in points allowed. No team in the country looks as complete as the Hoosiers, the only team in college football that has yet to experience a losing locker room. Indiana is a bully and a Cinderella story all wrapped up in one compelling package.

On Friday night, a giant speaker boomed house music as players danced and celebrated another dominant victory, one step away from completing a season that’s already a dream come to life. The program has its first Heisman Trophy and its first Big Ten title since 1967. Now, it is 60 minutes away from capturing the program’s first national title in Cignetti’s second season, months after the coach signed an extension to keep scowling in Bloomington in perpetuity.

Win that game, and that scowl might be immortalized in bronze somewhere outside Memorial Stadium. “We ain’t done yet,” Benson said.

(Grace Raynor) Dante Moore, Oregon try to make sense of miserable ending to season: ‘We beat ourselves’

ATLANTA — After it was over, the tears in Dante Moore’s eyes started to well up. The Oregon quarterback lingered on the sideline at Mercedes-Benz Stadium and began to hug coaches and teammates, one by one. When he connected with offensive lineman Iapani Laloulu, the Ducks center gave his quarterback a quick kiss on the cheek and started to pray with him. “I love you, boy,” Laloulu told him as Moore buried his head into Laloulu’s chest, his own upper body rising and falling with each emotional breath.

Then the Ducks’ young star walked off the field for the final time this season. He wiped his nose, flashed an “O” with his hands to the Oregon faithful and headed down the winding tunnel and toward the locker room to be with his teammates.

Moore, the redshirt sophomore who came to the West Coast from Detroit, has had plenty of dazzling moments in his No. 5 Oregon uniform. But Friday night against Indiana was a real-life nightmare in a 56-22 Oregon loss that somehow didn’t even feel that close. Moore finished the night 24-of-39 passing for 285 yards, two touchdowns and three turnovers in what will go down as one of the most frustrating nights of his career.

No one felt that more deeply than Moore. “First things first, the quarterback has to protect the football,” he said. “(Indiana) has a great defense, great disguise and different looks, but you can’t win football games if you’re causing turnovers. (That’s) something of course I need to work at.” The frustration kicked in early for Moore, who, in the game’s first play from scrimmage, threw a pick six straight into the hands of Indiana cornerback D’Angelo Ponds. Just 11 seconds into the game, the Hoosiers were up 7-0, with the overwhelmingly pro-Indiana crowd nearly bursting at the seams right from the jump.

Moore composed himself in the Ducks’ subsequent drive and led Oregon to a touchdown as the Ducks effectively attacked Indiana both through the air and on the ground to tie the score at 7. But midway through the second quarter, he fumbled when his arm hit freshman running back Dierre Hill Jr. on a run-pass option play. Indiana recovered at the Oregon 3-yard line and was in the end zone within 70 seconds. Later in the second quarter, Moore fumbled again — this time after he was sacked for a loss of 8 yards to put the Hoosiers at the Oregon 21. Spoiler alert: IU scored again. “Indiana’s defense is great,” Moore said. “But at the end of the day, we beat ourselves.”

After Oregon lost at home to Indiana 30-20 in October — Oregon’s only loss before Friday — the Ducks vowed that they’d make adjustments this time around and come in ready to attack an Indiana defense that makes life miserable for opposing quarterbacks with disguises and post-snap movement. But Moore could never get into a rhythm, with the Ducks either giving the ball away, punting or turning the ball over on downs on eight of their 12 drives. They were down 35-7 by halftime and 49-15 early in the fourth quarter. The run game, behind a thin group of Oregon running backs, didn’t help either. Indiana held Oregon to 93 yards on 26 carries.

“Our philosophy is to attack and we are moving a lot of pieces in the front seven,” Indiana coach Curt Cignetti said. “And we’ve always been top five in the country against the run, TFLs and sacks and that’s just our philosophy on how to play defense.”

Moore said when he watches the tape back of what became his hellacious night, he’ll watch not only his mistakes and his offense’s issues, but the play of Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza, too. Mendoza, by contrast, was lights out — the Heisman Trophy winner completed 85 percent of his passes for 177 yards and five touchdowns. “I give him his credit,” Moore said. “Somebody I’m going to stay in touch with when it comes to just talking ball, talking life. Quarterbacks learn from each other. And I’m excited how much I can learn from this game and learn from my future coming up.”

Speaking of that future, Moore has a big decision to make in the coming weeks about whether he wants to declare for the NFL Draft or return to Oregon for another season. He’s a projected first-rounder — and possibly a contender with Mendoza to go No. 1 overall — but as late Friday night inched toward early Saturday morning, he said he did not yet have an answer. The shock of it all was still setting in, his eyes wide and looking straight ahead at nothing in particular. This night will no doubt haunt him for the months and years to come.

“I knew that question was coming,” Moore said of his future. “I want to soak this moment up. That’s most important. Just giving hugs and just thank yous to my teammates, but at the end of the day, I don’t know my decision yet. I’m going to talk to coach (Dan) Lanning and talk to my family and everybody, but at the end of the day, I don’t want to think about that right now. I just want to think about my teammates and give love to them.”

  • Author
#310

(Heather Dinich) College football buzz: What we're hearing about playoff expansion

There is strong support for a 16-team College Football Playoff format to begin as soon as 2026 if Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey can reach a specific compromise, multiple sources with knowledge of the discussions have told ESPN in the days leading up to one of the most significant meetings for the sport's postseason. There's still a stalemate, though, between the two powerbrokers, meaning that even with a majority in favor of the change, the playoff could remain at 12 next season.

In November, the deadline for completing the format and related structural decisions moved from Dec. 1 to Jan. 23, 2026. CFP leaders -- including all 10 FBS commissioners, Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua, and the 11 presidents and chancellors who comprise the organization's board of managers -- will meet Jan. 18 in Miami, the day before the national championship game, for their annual review of the season.

They are expected to discuss two models: a 16-team field that includes five conference champions and 11 at-large teams, and another format with 24 teams. Petitti and Sankey have the bulk of control over the playoff's format in 2026 and beyond, an agreement the other commissioners and Bevacqua signed off on in 2024 during the last contract negotiations with ESPN. If the Big Ten and SEC leaders can't come to an agreement by the deadline, the playoff will remain at 12 teams. The field will now guarantee the Power 4 conference champions spots, along with the highest-ranked conference champion from the Group of 6, which now includes the revamped Pac-12.

The Power 4 commissioners, including the ACC's Jim Phillips and the Big 12's Brett Yormark, have had multiple separate discussions about it in the weeks and months leading up to the national title game. On Monday, they will hold a brief videoconference with select members of their staffs to prepare for the larger board meeting in Miami. Here's what the who's who of college football is saying behind closed doors about the future format, the selection committee, conference title games and the bowl games.

Future format

Sankey's support of a 16-team field is extremely significant because of the weight he carries in the room, but it won't happen if Petitti isn't on board. Sources say the Big Ten wants to use this as leverage to eventually lock in a field with at least 24 teams, with or without automatic qualifiers. In exchange for support of a 16-team tournament now, sources said the Big Ten is looking for a commitment to move to 24 teams after two or three seasons. Though some in the room might be willing to consider a 24-team field halfway through the new six-year deal, there is a strong reluctance to commit to it now -- and that could keep the stalemate ongoing. A 24-team playoff without automatic qualifiers, though, might be appealing enough for Sankey to consider.

Some CFP leaders have become more open to the idea of a 24-team field -- it's not something people vehemently oppose -- but there is a sense among many of them that it's too significant of a leap to make at this point. The Big Ten's perspective, according to sources, is that three years with 16 teams would give conference commissioners time to eliminate their conference championship games and restructure the postseason to accommodate play-in games or whatever path to the playoff they might favor.

There are some decision-makers, particularly in the SEC, who would support a field that included the 16 best teams without guarantees to conference champions, but also a realization that excluding the Group of 5 is a highly unlikely scenario. "I don't think that's going to fly," one source said. There also isn't any serious momentum to require conference champions to be ranked within a certain range to qualify for the playoff -- a public talking point after No. 25 JMU entered the field. That qualifier hasn't gained support from decision-makers.

Sources said the 24-team model has been presented to the Power 4 commissioners, but not the larger group. There are still significant questions about how it would work and when, in addition to learning more specifically how the revenue would replace the championship games. There are also some concerns about weakening the importance of the regular season and adding even more lopsided postseason matchups. There is also a unified desire to preserve the Army-Navy window, while also realizing games would need to be played around it.

Under the new governance structure, any changes to the future format are now in the hands of the commissioners and Bevacqua. They no longer need the CFP's board of managers -- which is composed of 11 presidents and chancellors -- to give final approval.

One of the issues at the heart of this year's Selection Day was the ACC's tiebreaker, which excluded Miami from the conference championship game while pitting Virginia and five-loss Duke against each other. Because the five-loss Blue Devils won the league, the ACC champ was excluded from the CFP, while its best team, Miami, needed a last-minute flip to be included. Multiple sources have indicated that all Power 4 conferences will work this offseason to have a similar tiebreaker that would ultimately resort to the CFP rankings if needed -- something the Mountain West Conference did this past season. Those discussions are expected to heighten at the respective winter meetings.

Selection committee

Part of the Big Ten's issue with the CFP system is a belief that the selection committee has an impossible job that will only get more difficult as the SEC and ACC transition to nine-game conference schedules this year. With an increase in two- and three-loss teams expected, the committee will have a tougher task evaluating those records against the opponents they've played. The committee's enhanced strength of schedule metric and new record strength metric didn't provide any glaring differences fans would have noticed this past season in each weekly ranking.

No major changes are expected to the committee's protocol, but some sources -- inside and outside of the room -- have questioned whether sitting athletic directors should remain a part of the group, given how much pressure there is on schools and conferences to make the playoff. Is it possible for those individuals to act independently and not as representatives of their respective conferences? Some within the industry have suggested the committee chair be independent -- not a sitting athletic director, as has been the norm throughout the duration of the CFP. There isn't any momentum for athletic directors to cycle off the committee, and there is still support for the position from CFP leaders who believe they lend credence to the system. Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek is expected to serve one more season as the committee's chair, but the commissioners and Bevacqua still have to approve that recommendation.

The reality is that it has gotten much more difficult to find committee members since the inaugural season of the playoff.

Bowls

The indecision surrounding the CFP's future format is having a trickle-down effect on the bowl system. The larger the playoff field, the fewer name-brand bowl-eligible teams will be available for the non-CFP bowls. There will be more conversations this offseason about how many bowls there should be. Currently, there are 41 FBS bowl games, including the six CFP bowls. That leaves 70 teams that played in non-CFP bowls this season, and only three of them were below the .500 bowl-eligibility mark at 5-7.

Bowl Season executive director Nick Carparelli said he's still confident, though, that the playoff field won't impact the health of the non-CFP bowls. Carparelli said that over the past five seasons, an average of 81 teams played in FBS bowls with a 6-6 record or better. "I think a lot of people are waiting to hear the final decision on the next format of the CFP, and as a result, much of college football is in a little bit of a holding pattern," Carparelli said. "The bowl organizations have been in constant discussion with their conference partners about potential partnerships for the future, but nothing has been finalized until we know what the CFP is going to look like.

"I think most people thought the bowl system was going to be diminished when we went from four teams to 12 teams two years ago," Carparelli said, "but over that two-year period, the overall non-CFP television viewership has been up 25%, so I think that proves that there's always going to be an appetite for college football in the month of December. And regardless of the CFP format, the rest of the bowl system is going to provide great college football programming in between each round of the playoff to keep college football fans excited."

Though many fans, coaches and players have enjoyed the atmosphere and advantages of first-round home games in the 12-team CFP, multiple commissioners have said publicly and privately that it's important to continue the partnership with the six major bowls -- Cotton, Fiesta, Peach, Rose, Sugar and Orange. If the playoff expands beyond 12 teams, though, more games are expected to be played on campus in addition to the major bowls.

#312

On 1/10/2026 at 9:41 AM, satyanash said:

David Ubben: Indiana is part Cinderella story, part spirit-breaking bully, and ‘the secret’s in the dirt’

(Grace Raynor) Dante Moore, Oregon try to make sense of miserable ending to season: ‘We beat ourselves’

It's so obvious that Moore needs another year of college before he will be NFL ready, but it's awfully hard to turn down the 10-12 million that potentially comes with a top 10 pick. OTOH, the Jets are thristy as fuck for a QB at #2.

Jennifer Lawrence Oops GIF

#313
1 hour ago, Bateshorn said:

It's so obvious that Moore needs another year of college before he will be NFL ready, but it's awfully hard to turn down the 10-12 million that potentially comes with a top 10 pick. OTOH, the Jets are thristy as fuck for a QB at #2.

Jennifer Lawrence Oops GIF

Moore to Jets would be a disaster for Moore (it's the Jets - they ruin everyone).

That said, 2027 is going to be an absolutely loaded QB class so he might as well get that bag.

#315
On 1/2/2026 at 12:53 PM, 956 Worldwide said:

Really insane numbers here from Indiana and hard not to think that this is a big reason why they play such controlled, mistake free ball. They are grownups.

Well then learn and get your 23/24 year old's.

#316

Someone on Reddit did the math and figured out the average age of Miami’s starters is 3 months older than Indiana’s (they did years since high school graduation in their calculation since age data is hard to find). It’s like 22.5 vs Indiana’s 22.2 or something.

Point is, if you want to win in modern CFB having a roster of solid veteran players is the way to go over young highly rated players.

#317
2 hours ago, Helobious said:

Someone on Reddit did the math and figured out the average age of Miami’s starters is 3 months older than Indiana’s (they did years since high school graduation in their calculation since age data is hard to find). It’s like 22.5 vs Indiana’s 22.2 or something.

Point is, if you want to win in modern CFB having a roster of solid veteran players is the way to go over young highly rated players.

Happy The Office GIF

#320
58 minutes ago, 'stache said:

OKST finished No. 1 in the Colley Matrix in 2011. Put it on the wall!

Sorry, you have to be SECSECSEC to be insecure dorks who claim retroactive titles from computers.

  • Author
#322

Jay Busbee: Ready for Indiana vs. Miami? Well, hurry up and wait

So, how about those College Football Playoff semifinals last week, huh? A thrilling Miami win, a dominant Indiana performance! Can’t wait to see those two unlikely-but-deserving programs square off in … wait, another week from now? Yes, like a defensive lineman that recovered a fumble in his own red zone, the college football season started with unstoppable momentum and now, with the end in sight, is collapsing in a chaotic heap of its own making.

Of all the woes that have bedeviled college football as it’s lurched into this new era — NIL, the transfer portal, disposable and interchangeable coaching staffs, a constantly moving target of a playoff bracket — the most maddening is that the sport has managed to strangle all the momentum out of its best asset: the on-field product.

College football has always faced the challenge of navigating its last few weeks around two pillars: the academic calendar (stop laughing) and the holidays. Yes, since they still insist on calling players “student-athletes,” college sports have to at least nod in the direction of final exams. Add in the fact that, for most of sports history, leagues and networks have assumed that people would want to spend time with their families, not their televisions, over the holidays, and you have a couple challenges to the late-season schedule.

But challenges are one thing. Mountainous immovable impossibilities are quite another, and in addition to final exams and holidays, college football also must navigate around the behemoths that are Tradition and NFL Football. Tradition is why college football must rotate its entire schedule around the bowls and New Year’s Day, and the NFL is why college football has to surrender the Saturdays it’s stacked up throughout the entire fall.

Thing is, the NFL doesn’t give a damn about tradition, its own or anyone else’s, not when there’s calendar real estate to be claimed. The NFL even elbowed college football right off its traditional New Year’s Day date back in 2022 when Jan. 1 fell on a Sunday. Back then, in the four-team playoff era, the Fiesta (TCU-Michigan) and Peach (Ohio State-Georgia) Bowl playoff semifinals were played on New Year’s Eve, along with the Sugar Bowl. The Rose Bowl had to wait until Monday, Jan. 2, and even then it overlapped with an NFL game (the Bengals-Bills Monday Night Football game ultimately canceled because of Damar Hamlin’s medical emergency).

The result of all these competing forces is the dog’s breakfast of a schedule that the College Football Playoff has become. By the time this is all over, CFP games will have been played on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Indiana will have played exactly two football games between the Big Ten championship on Dec. 6 and the national championship 45 days later on Jan. 19. Two full weeks of NFL playoffs will air between the semifinals and the national championship.

This isn’t sustainable, and that doesn’t even factor in the madness that is the transfer portal opening and closing in the middle of all this, along with all its attendant coach movement. College football’s calendar needs a complete teardown to the studs. There are as many ideas for the calendar as there are college football fans, but some combination of the following will almost surely happen:

  • Changing “Week 0” to “Week 1” and starting the whole season a week earlier

  • Extending the season to the second week in December, ending the Army/Navy game’s dominion over that weekend

  • Altering traditional Thanksgiving week from rivalry games to conference championships (and potential playoff play-in games)

  • Eliminating conference championships altogether

No matter what, the college football powers that be have to get the sport finished up earlier than late January. Every bit of momentum from a magical, ridiculous season will have bled away by then. The season has to end earlier, ideally before the NFL playoffs start, but absolutely no longer than wild card weekend. Problem is, the NFL’s not going to give up the Monday night playoff game it’s held since 2021; college football missed the window on that one. But maybe a Tuesday night championship after the first wild card weekend would be better than waiting another six days…?

No matter which way the sport goes in the future, it’s still nearly a week to go until the 2026 national championship kicks off. Might as well spend that time kicking around ideas for the future.

#324

Is it me, or is the Indiana -8.5 line insane?

Indiana is great and should be favored, but Miami is on a roll and playing at home.

Seems like a lot.

  • Author
#325

(Matt Baker) Miami vs. Indiana: What you need to know about an unlikely CFP national championship

For only the second time of the College Football Playoff era, the national championship will take place without at least one of four usual suspects: Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State and Clemson. Instead, the Jan. 19 CFP final at Hard Rock Stadium will feature two less likely teams: undefeated, No. 1 Indiana and 10th-seeded Miami, which will play on its home field. Given the (relatively) new faces squaring off for the title in the second year of the 12-team format, here’s a quick look at the histories of both contenders, how they got here and why this is such an unlikely matchup.

A brief history of Miami football

The Hurricanes finished ranked only five times from 1936-78 and were on life support when Howard Schnellenberger arrived in ’79. He quickly started a dynasty; Schnellenberger’s Hurricanes won the state of Florida’s first national championship in 1983 with an upset against Nebraska, and The U added four more (’87, ’89, ’91 and 2001) over the next 18 years. Miami produced a pair of Heisman Trophy-winning quarterbacks (Vinny Testaverde and Gino Torretta) and built an empire on retaining elite local talent and a whole lot of swag. The 2001 title team is regarded as one of the most talented rosters ever assembled with Hall of Famers Ed Reed and Andre Johnson among its astounding 38 future NFL Draft picks.

A brief history of Indiana football

The Hoosiers have been bad (or worse) for almost their entire existence. They never recorded a 10-win season until last year and entered this season with more all-time losses than any other FBS program (Northwestern has since “passed” them). Before this Playoff run, Indiana hadn’t won a bowl game since 1991 and had appeared in only 13 postseason games ever. Indiana played in the Rose Bowl in 1967, finished No. 4 nationally in 1945 and once had Lee Corso as its head coach. Those are pretty much the only highlights until head coach Curt Cignetti arrived two years ago.

INDIANA

TALE OF THE TAPE

MIAMI

15-0

2025 record

13-2

No. 1

CFP seed

No. 10

Big Ten

Conference

ACC

0

National championships

5

3

AP top-10 finishes

17

1

Heisman winners

2

1

Pro Football Hall of Famers

9

Why Miami’s run is so surprising

Since those two decades of glory, Miami has been so mired in mediocrity that “Is The U back?” has become a semi-annual question. Since joining the ACC in 2004, the Hurricanes have not won the conference championship and lost 38-3 to Clemson in their lone ACC title game appearance (2017). Before this year, Miami had not won a major bowl game or finished in the top 10 in two decades. The Canes built a recent reputation as a team that routinely squandered good talent with undisciplined play, penalties and underwhelming quarterbacks.

Why Indiana’s run is so surprising

To repeat: The Hoosiers have been bad (or worse) for almost their entire existence and entered this season with the most all-time losses of any program. Indiana had zero top-10 finishes in the five decades before Cignetti. He inherited a 3-9 team but made the Playoff in Year 1 and has rolled into the title game in Year 2. Despite last year’s success, Indiana started the season only 20th in the AP poll, showing the lingering skepticism. It’s one of the most remarkable turnarounds in the history of college sports, period.

How Miami got here

Head coach Mario Cristobal signed top-seven recruiting classes in his first two full cycles and built dominant lines on both sides of the ball. The Hurricanes balanced a foundation of blue-chip high school talent with key transfers like starting quarterback Carson Beck from Georgia. Miami did not even play for the ACC championship because of two regular-season losses (to Louisville after Beck threw four interceptions and at SMU) and a convoluted five-way tiebreaker.

The Hurricanes’ CFP hopes looked grim in early rankings, but their season-opening 27-24 victory over Notre Dame became a trump card that gave them the final at-large spot in the field over the Fighting Irish. Miami smothered Texas A&M (10-3) and toppled reigning national champion Ohio State (24-14) in the first two rounds with great defense, then withstood a late back-and-forth frenzy to outlast Ole Miss 31-27 in the Fiesta Bowl semifinal.

How Indiana got here

Cignetti was at James Madison before taking over the Hoosiers, and he brought a chunk of JMU’s roster with him to IU. He built on last year’s 11-2 run by adding quarterback Fernando Mendoza from Cal; Mendoza became the first Indiana player to win the Heisman Trophy. The Hoosiers rank No. 2 in the FBS in scoring offense and scoring defense, and they’re also in the top two in turnover margin and penalties per game. That means they do everything well and don’t beat themselves. Only three of Indiana’s 15 wins were by one score.

IU is on the verge of becoming the first major college football team to go 16-0 since 1894 Yale. Its past three games: a 13-10 triumph over Ohio State in the Big Ten championship, a 38-3 rout of Alabama in the Rose Bowl and a 56-22 obliteration of Oregon in the Peach Bowl semifinal.

About Miami head coach Mario Cristobal

The 55-year-old Miami native was an offensive lineman on two of the Hurricanes’ national title teams. He was the head coach at FIU and Oregon (where he won two Pac-12 titles), with a spell on Nick Saban’s Alabama staff in between, and he took Miami from 5-7 in his first year to 7-6, 10-3 and now 13-2. Cristobal is regarded as an excellent recruiter but iffy game manager; he infamously dropped a game to Georgia Tech in 2023 after his team lost a fumble instead of kneeling out a win. He has, however, amassed a top-tier roster and kept his team together after its two losses. Previous Miami teams have cratered in similar situations.

About Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti

As the 64-year-old Pennsylvania native said when he got the job: He wins. Google him. Before taking over IU, he went 52-9 at James Madison while navigating its jump to college football’s top level (Football Bowl Subdivision) and made five playoff appearances in eight combined years at Elon and Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP). His father, Frank, was a Hall of Fame coach at IUP who appeared in two Division II national championship games. Cignetti didn’t become a household name until recently, but he was a key staffer under Saban at Alabama and developed Philip Rivers at NC State. He’s 26-2 at IU.

Miami names to know

Carson Beck won two national titles as a backup at Georgia, starred in ’23 and was shaky last year before injuring his elbow in the SEC championship. He transferred to Miami as one of the highest-paid players in the transfer portal and has remained a lightning rod. His CFP numbers: four touchdown passes, one interception and the game-winning touchdown rush against Ole Miss. Wide receiver Malachi Toney is arguably the nation’s top freshman and scored the game-winner at Texas A&M. Nicknamed “Baby Jesus,” the 18-year-old recorded the eighth 1,000-yard season in program history.

The excellent lines are led by a pair of first-round NFL Draft talents, offensive tackle Francis Mauigoa and defensive lineman Rueben Bain Jr., plus all-ACC defensive end Akheem Mesidor. Running back Mark Fletcher Jr. has rushed for 395 yards in three Playoff games, including a pivotal 56-yard breakaway against the Aggies. Because Miami’s rich history is never far away, you’ll often see legendary alumni like Michael Irvin and Ray Lewis on the sidelines.

Indiana names to know

Fernando Mendoza has been one of the country’s most accurate passers and will likely be in the discussion as the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft. In two Playoff wins, he has thrown more touchdown passes (eight) than incompletions (five). Left tackle Carter Smith was named the Big Ten’s offensive lineman of the year and is another top-50 prospect. He anchors a unit that was regarded as one of the nation’s best. D’Angelo Ponds and Louis Moore are both all-conference defensive backs.

Ponds returned an interception for a touchdown on the first snap of the Peach Bowl, and Moore’s six picks were tied for second nationally. Linebacker Aiden Fisher was an All-Big Ten honoree for the second consecutive year after following Cignetti from JMU. Running backs Roman Hemby and Kaelon Black have both topped 900 rushing yards, while Elijah Sarratt and Omar Cooper Jr. (who made the catch of the year to beat Penn State) are the only teammates with at least 10 touchdown catches each. Charlie Becker has broken out down the stretch alongside them.

Mark Cuban, who became famous as the Dallas Mavericks’ owner and on the TV show “Shark Tank,” is an IU alum and benefactor to the Hoosiers’ NIL war chest.

#326
4 hours ago, The Dog said:

Is it me, or is the Indiana -8.5 line insane?

Indiana is great and should be favored, but Miami is on a roll and playing at home.

Seems like a lot.

I am getting ‘83 Orange Bowl vibes (I think it was that year). I’m with you. That said I have a weird dislike of Indiana since last year. A lot of it is Cignetti but they were a fraud last year and I hated that. And their non con for the rest of the decade doesn’t include a single power 4 team which should be illegal. Obviously this team is legit. But I’ll be rooting for Miami.

#327
26 minutes ago, A-Tex Devil said:

I am getting ‘83 Orange Bowl vibes (I think it was that year). I’m with you. That said I have a weird dislike of Indiana since last year. A lot of it is Cignetti but they were a fraud last year and I hated that. And their non con for the rest of the decade doesn’t include a single power 4 team which should be illegal. Obviously this team is legit. But I’ll be rooting for Miami.

One big difference between that Nebraska team and Indiana is that Nebraska played absolutely nobody that year (they did beat penn state who was #4 at the time but finished unranked). Miami was the first ranked team Nebraska played all season.

Indiana has multiple wins over top opponents. Their non-conference schedule was poop but the Big Twentysomething was legit this year.

Still think 8.5 is a lot. Interested to see if the line moves down at all as we approach the game. Everyone I follow online is taking Miami and the points and Josh Pate just took Miami outright.

#328
1 hour ago, A-Tex Devil said:

That said I have a weird dislike of Indiana since last year.

My dislike is everyone slobbing on their knobs and treating Cignetti like he's already Nick Saban

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