Impossible To Google: Indiana Completes Unlikeliest Turnaround In Sports History

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — To present a full-term shot miracle, the intolerable Indiana saga needed 1 much melodramatic flourish, 1 much infinitesimal of divine inspiration, from its 2 superior authors. The top assemblage shot communicative ever told needed coach Curt Cignetti to make his bravest telephone and it needed quarterback Fernando Mendoza to make his bravest play.

With 9 minutes and 27 seconds near successful nan College Football Playoff nationalist title crippled against Miami, facing a fourth-and-5 astatine nan 12-yard statement and holding a precarious 17–14 lead, Cignetti signaled timeout.

“In nan huddle, we’re astir to spell retired location pinch nan PAT squad and Cignetti comes retired and he yells, ‘Get retired connected nan field, we’re going for it!’ It sewage maine a small pumped up,” says tackle Carter Smith.

The call: a backmost tie by Mendoza. What transpired was nan astir memorable play of nan Hoosiers’ 16–0 season, and nan astir memorable play successful programme history.

They had tally successful QB draws respective times during nan season, respective of them successful nan reddish zone. But nan determination not to trust connected nan limb of nan astir businesslike passer successful nan nation, and his elite receiving corps, came pinch sizeable risk. Getting 5 yards connected nan crushed against nan sadistic Hurricanes defense was hardly a given. Come up short, and it’s a section extremity crippled against an force that had gained each nan violative momentum.

No fearfulness from Indiana. No hesitation from nan violative unit.

“A large changeless that we’ve really had this twelvemonth is ever stake connected ourselves,” Mendoza said. “They called that play, we knew, hey, we’re going to stake connected ourselves 1 much clip astatine nan biggest shape of nan game.”

Cignetti’s endless attraction to item led him and his violative unit to judge nan telephone would activity against Miami’s defense. How nan Hoosiers would artifact that peculiar play was a 45-minute unit chat successful nan days starring up to nan game. They lined up pinch 4 wide receivers to dispersed nan defense, positive moving back  successful nan backfield to service arsenic a lead blocker. Miami had 4 down linemen and different 5 defenders arrayed crossed nan first-down statement astatine nan 7.

The shot was snapped. All of Indiana’s raucous, rejuvenated instrumentality base—which took complete much than half of Hard Rock Stadium, Miami’s location base—held its corporate breath.

Mendoza took nan threat successful nan shotgun, group his correct ft connected nan 20-yard statement to coming a passing threat, past took disconnected up nan middle, shot successful his near arm. The 6' 5" Mendoza has an unorthodox moving style—often effective but ne'er fluid, legs each complete nan place, nan anti–Vince Young. Think babe giraffe trying to flight lions. “Everybody connected nan team, including Coach, makes nosy of my moving style,” Mendoza said.

Never again.

The play started smoothly earlier devolving into an alley fight. Black burst done nan mediate of nan statement of scrimmage and delivered nan first of aggregate bruising shots to luckless linebacker Wesley Bissainthe. While 3 of Miami’s linemen surged upfield, moving themselves retired of nan play, halfway Pat Coogan tied up interior lineman Justin Scott. Mendoza nimbly trim correct and hopped complete Coogan’s legs. The first down was secure, but Mendoza had his eyes connected nan extremity zone.

His deceptive velocity carried him past protect backmost Zechariah Poyser and Xavier Lucas, nan second of whom delivered a glancing rustle to Mendoza’s correct side. Then it was clip to tally done Bissainthe, who had bounced disconnected nan blocks from Black and lineman Drew Evans to impede Mendoza’s path.

Mendoza and Bissainthe collided astatine nan 4. The 230-pound Bissainthe coiled up connected his rear extremity astatine nan 2. “Fernando trucked nan linebacker,” Cignetti noted admiringly.

But nan collision besides spun Mendoza around, astir taking him to nan ground. He reached down to dependable himself for an instant pinch his correct hand, past pivoted and made a lunge for nan extremity zone. At nan 2, he launched himself for illustration John Elway going for a cardinal first down successful Super Bowl XXXII against Green Bay, taking a deed that helicoptered nan Hall of Famer to nan turf. As Mendoza stretched and dove, holding nan shot retired toward nan extremity line, he absorbed a wicked changeable successful nan backmost from linebacker Mohamed Toure.

Too late. Touchdown. The past of Mendoza’s 48 touchdowns successful this magical Heisman Trophy–winning play paved nan measurement for a 27–21 triumph. Mendoza’s tally unveiled nan robust will that resides beneath his Mr. Nice Guy persona.

“I cognize he’s awesome successful interviews and comes disconnected arsenic nan All-American guy, but he has nan bosom of a lion erstwhile it comes to competition,” Cignetti said. “That feline competes for illustration a warrior.”

The warrior backmost pinch a bosom of golden and nan brilliant coach pinch a mien of chromatic person made for a operation dissimilar thing seen successful assemblage football. Mendoza, nan No. 134 backmost successful nan recruiting people of 2022, is simply a font of enthusiasm and positivity. Cignetti, who didn’t get his changeable astatine a power-conference occupation until he was 62, tin out-Saban his erstwhile boss, Nick Saban, erstwhile it comes to repressed emotion and relentless drive.

Their supporting formed is populated pinch lightly recruited players who followed Cignetti from James Madison 2 years ago—among them protect extremity Mikail Kamara, who blocked a punt for a monolithic touchdown successful nan 3rd quarter, undersized cornerback D’Angelo Ponds, who collapsed up 3 passes, and linebacker Aiden Fisher, who recorded nan only sack of Miami backmost Carson Beck.

They each came together astatine a Midwest shot flophouse, nan historically worst programme successful FBS history.

“We’re 16–0, nationalist champions astatine Indiana University, which I cognize a batch of group thought was ne'er possible,” Cignetti said. “It astir apt is 1 of nan top sports stories of each time.”

Probably? Please. The Hoosiers guidelines alone.

On Oct. 15, 1887, Indiana made its intercollegiate shot debut pinch a nonaccomplishment to Franklin College, 10–8. The program’s reside was group from nan start.

The Hoosiers won conscionable 2 of their first 25 games and didn’t nudge their all-time grounds supra .500 until 1901. They muddled on successful mediocrity for decades thereafter, bobbing supra and beneath that line, until Bo McMillin had a flurry of occurrence during World War II, highlighted by a 9-0-1 grounds successful 1945. Then he near aft nan 1947 play to coach nan Detroit Lions, and nan losing really began.

Clyde Smith. Bernie Crimmins. Bob Hicks. Phil Dickens. John Pont. Lee Corso. Sam Wyche. Bill Mallory. Cam Cameron. Gerry DiNardo. Terry Hoeppner. Bill Lynch. Kevin Wilson. Tom Allen. Fourteen consecutive coaches were hired pinch precocious hopes, and they each near pinch losing records. This was nan meaning of a coaching graveyard.

There were 26 losing seasons retired of 29 from 1995 to 2023. The misery seemed imperishable and irrevocable, embedded successful nan limestone-rich hills that situation Bloomington, Ind. “Never daunted,” arsenic nan conflict opus says? The Hoosiers were perma-daunted for decades.

Fans emotion a winner, and nan authorities has hoops successful its DNA, truthful they stayed distant from Memorial Stadium while packing Assembly Hall to support a men’s programme that has won 5 nationalist titles. Indiana students became infamous for packing nan pregame shot tailgates and ne'er entering nan stadium, aliases leaving astatine halftime for nan statement and not returning. When Ohio State, Michigan aliases Penn State came to town, nan crowd divided was often adjacent to 50-50.

Then, Curt Cignetti happened. Google, get maine rewrite.

With virtually cipher excited astir his presence successful December 2023, Cignetti went astir waking up nan instrumentality guidelines pinch a bid of bombastic comments. The astir famous: “I win. Google me.”

Everyone laughed astatine that for a fewer months. Then he backed it up to an astonishing degree.

“I cognize a batch of group were like, who’s this f---ing guy?” Cignetti said successful October 2024 pinch a Yinzer accent, his Pittsburgh-area roots slipping retired 1 coiled vowel astatine a time. “I didn’t care. I’m 62, 63 now. I didn’t springiness a f---.

“I could conscionable observe really downtrodden everybody was, you cognize what I mean? So I said what I said, because I had to get a guidance from them. And nan remainder is history.”

Indiana shot had 715 losses entering nan Cignetti era, nan astir of immoderate FBS squad successful history. Heading into nan 2025 season, nan Hoosiers stood astatine 717—still nan astir successful history. They still are astatine 717. Nearly 140 years of habitual, ritual losing conscionable screeched to a halt.

Programs that bad don’t get to beryllium this good. Not this quickly. Not this dramatically. Indiana was 7–22 successful nan 29 games earlier Cignetti arrived, and is now 27–2 after. There is nary comparable turnaround.

Indiana likes to tout itself arsenic having nan largest surviving alumni guidelines successful nan country, pinch much than 800,000. That mob has caught shot fever successful a hurry. Eight of nan 11 largest location crowds successful schoolhouse history person travel successful 2024 and ’25, and nan overtaking of 3 stadiums during this College Football Playoff tally has been breathtaking.

A squad that averaged a school-record 51,000 fans for location games this season—the astir successful schoolhouse history—had galore much than that show up astatine nan Rose Bowl and nan Peach Bowl. And then, amid what mightiness beryllium nan astir costly summons marketplace successful playoff history, the Hoosiers outnumbered nan Hurricanes successful their ain stadium Monday night.

The Sunday nighttime segment astatine nan Indiana squad hotel, The Intercontinental, was raucous and festive. Hundreds of fans successful their cream-and-crimson cogwheel filled nan entryway and mobbed Toro, nan lobby bar, swamping nan hold staff. Beer taps kept blowing retired arsenic nan request for intoxicant overwhelmed nan proviso of suds.

They came for nan astir improbable coronation successful assemblage shot history. But they had to strengthen a tension-filled brawl to get it.

The Miami crippled scheme was evident quickly—unleash its ferocious beforehand 7 to deed Mendoza early, and deed him often. And deed him late, too. One changeable produced a bloody lip. None of them produced punishment flags.

“There should person been 2 roughing nan quarterbacks [penalties] and 1 precocious deed to nan caput that weren’t called,” Cignetti said. “I’m each for letting them play, but erstwhile they transverse nan statement you’ve sewage to telephone them.”

Mendoza ne'er flinched. This was not going to beryllium a 3rd consecutive blowout, for illustration nan Rose Bowl against Alabama and nan Peach Bowl against Oregon. This was going to beryllium a methodical conflict that required calm successful nan look of pressure. The backmost was up for that situation successful his hometown.

Mendoza’s full-circle Miami journey has captivated nan country. He grew up a Hurricanes instrumentality but went unrecruited by The U, astatine first committing to Yale earlier being discovered by California. After 2 coagulated seasons there, he was expected to beryllium a value Big Ten starter this season. Instead, he blew up into a superstar.

When this crippled was yet secured by a Jamari Sharpe interception successful nan last minute—adding 1 much takeaway to Indiana’s nation-leading turnover margin—Cignetti stayed successful stoic characteristic while Mendoza amazingly fell out.

“I first want to springiness each nan glory to God,” Mendoza said connected TV connected nan field, his customary preamble. “There’s nary amended group of guys I’d want to do it with. This is nan astir typical infinitesimal of my life. This is specified a awesome group of guys, I emotion you guys. Great job. Let’s f---ing go!”

So he knows astatine slightest 1 cussword, and was consenting to usage it. The 2 priests from his IU parish, Saint Paul, who were connected nan section aft nan crippled tin connection him absolution for that.

“I’d opportunity wide my emotion and it’s nan pinnacle peak,” Mendoza explained later. “All season—sometimes I’ve had these cookie-cutter responses, media-trained responses, connected to nan adjacent game, connected to nan adjacent play, and now we did it. At that constituent I deliberation it was only fitting to unfastened nan floodgates, per se, break my stereotype.”

They did it. Indiana, of each schools, won a shot nationalist championship.

“A batch of group thought what we were doing was a fairy communicative and a Cinderella story. It was each reality. We put it connected nan grass,” Coogan said. “I’m conscionable really happy for this university. Everybody that’s poured their bosom and psyche and went done immoderate really acheronian times. We reached a mountaintop.”

Whether that opens nan floodgates for others remains to beryllium seen. It’s tantalizing for 50 different schools to aspire to it—if nan Hoosiers tin do it, why not us? But they person to find a unicorn coach and an uber-clutch backmost to build on.

Google nan top miracles successful shot history, and Curt Cignetti will travel up. So will Fernando Mendoza. They person reframed what’s possible.

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