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Indiana 27, Miami 21: Full Recap of the Hoosiers’ First CFP National Championship
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The fairy tale has a happy ending. Indiana, the losingest college football program in history coming into the season, romped through the 2025 season without a blemish and roared to a 27–21 win over Miami in the College Football Playoff national championship game to claim its first title. The No. 1-seeded Hoosiers capped a 16–0 season, the first such season since the 1800s, in dominant fashion. Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza was 16 of 27 for 186 yards and scored an absurd 12-yard rushing touchdown in the fourth quarter on a fourth-and-5 play. Now, it’s off to the NFL draft for Mendoza and a host of other Hoosiers.
Full Recap of the College Football Playoff national championship game
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Bryan Fischer is a staff writer at Sports Illustrated covering college sports. He joined the SI staff in October 2024 after spending nearly two decades at outlets such as FOX Sports, NBC Sports and CBS Sports. A member of the Football Writers Association of America's All-America Selection Committee and a Heisman Trophy voter, Fischer has received awards for investigative journalism from the Associated Press Sports Editors and FWAA. He has a bachelor's in communication from USC.
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Pat Forde is a senior writer for Sports Illustrated who covers college football and college basketball as well as the Olympics and horse racing. He cohosts the College Football Enquirer podcast and is a football analyst on the Big Ten Network. He previously worked for Yahoo Sports, ESPN and The (Louisville) Courier-Journal. Forde has won 28 Associated Press Sports Editors writing contest awards, has been published three times in the Best American Sports Writing book series, and was nominated for the 1990 Pulitzer Prize. A past president of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association and member of the Football Writers Association of America, he lives in Louisville with his wife. They have three children, all of whom were collegiate swimmers.
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