'Here to Stay': After CFP Title, Indiana Football No Longer 'Little Old Indiana'

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — The smell of cigar smoke filled the air. The middle of the locker room became a dance floor. Then, a conglomerate of Indiana football players, still riding the high of the greatest night in program history, began belting lyrics.

“Walk in your trap,” they shouted in unison. “Take over your trap.”

Again, and again, and again. Indiana’s locker room, buried beneath the grandstands of Hard Rock Stadium, became Miami’s finest party scene. The Hoosiers had never thrown this party, nor ever had reason to plan for it.

Once perennial bottom-feeders, No. 1 Indiana already burned college football’s hierarchy to ashes with its 27–21 win over Miami in the College Football Playoff National Championship on Monday in Miami Gardens — and the Hoosiers tried burning down their locker room, too.

“I wouldn't say I'm a cigar guy,” defensive tackle Mario Landino, who’d never smoked one, told Indiana Hoosiers On SI. “But it's a special moment. I just can't explain it.”

None of the Hoosiers’ historical run to prominence is explicable. Indiana, the second-losingest program ever, capped the first 16–0 season since Yale in 1894 with a will-testing, gut-checking, pulse-stopping victory in Miami’s home stadium.

When redshirt junior quarterback Fernando Mendoza slid to the ground, when the final seconds ticked off the clock, when celebratory madness ensued, several Indiana offensive linemen remained seated near the goal line.

There was exhaustion. There was relief. There was a crimson-colored punctuation point on a season full of highlights. Soon, there were tears, hugs and the type of emotions players wish they could bottle up and carry forever.

“It's really up there in one of the best nights ever, man,” senior receiver Elijah Sarratt told Indiana Hoosiers On SI. “I hope I remember everything, but I'm sure it’s going to be a little blur when I wake up tomorrow.

“But, man, I'm never going to forget that feeling of when that clock hit zero and I'm running out there on that field, man.”

That moment — when cream and crimson-colored confetti turned Hard Rock Stadium into a snow globe of paper mache, when large posters with “National Champions” inscriptions were passed amongst players, when eyes watered and hugs flew — will forever live in Hoosier infamy.

For the self-proclaimed misfits and rejects, for those who endured the dark days of Indiana football, for the fans who, as long-standing radio announcer Don Fischer said postgame, “sat through some of the worst football you could possible see” for decades, such moments are a culmination of work, faith and an unrelenting desire to re-define Indiana.

“Man, this is top two and not two,” Jones said about where Monday ranks in the best nights of his life. “This is it.”

Others agreed.

“This might be the best night of my life, if I can be completely honest,” fifth-year senior running back Roman Hemby told Indiana Hoosiers On SI. “I'm going to remember the whole night vividly. Everything that happens over the course of the next, however long I'm up for the night, I'm going to remember everything.”

The Hoosiers were once a laughing stock. Now, they’re kings — owners of college football’s most sought after crown.

“What the outside public thinks, we don't control,” Indiana coach Curt Cignetti said postgame. “It's a great story, tremendous story. Most people would tell you that are in the know, it's probably one of the greatest stories of all time.”

Cignetti was the author, the director, of a story so good, National Championship Game Defensive MVP Mikail Kamara said it warrants a book or movie made about it.

The Hoosiers are 27–2 through Cignetti’s two seasons at the helm, which followed a stretch where they went 9–27 the previous three years under coach Tom Allen.

Indiana faced doubts about its ability to sustain success after going 11–2 and making the College Football Playoff in 2024, and Cignetti turned heads in July at Big Ten Media Day when he said he didn’t want to sustain, but build upon, the greatest year in school history.

Mission accomplished.

Indiana finished undefeated for the first time in program history. It beat college football’s most prestigious schools, most powerful brands, in Ohio State, Alabama, Oregon twice and, of course, Miami on the sport’s biggest stage.

Sixth-year senior safety Louis Moore said Indiana has earned the right to be considered one of the greatest teams in college football history.

“I definitely feel that way,” Moore told Indiana Hoosiers On SI. “We did it all. Ain't nothing we didn't do.”

The Hoosiers heard questions about their legitimacy during last year’s label-changing season, and Cignetti noted it fueled his players over the offseason.

Indiana shook its tag as underdogs and ascended into favorites — no longer the hunters, but the hunted. Still, redshirt junior defensive tackle Tyrique Tucker said, there’s satisfaction in eliminating all questions about the program’s legitimacy.

While Tucker celebrated with teammates and strolled around the field in the aftermath of Monday night’s win, he kept repeating one word: Undisputed.

“I just can't believe it, man, because they said we couldn't do it, and we had to go prove them wrong once again,” Tucker told Indiana Hoosiers On SI. “I mean, what can they say?  Undisputed champs, man. Undefeated. We met every challenge they threw at us, man.”

Indiana, perhaps quietly, set the national championship as its goal entering the season. But the Hoosiers didn’t publicly speak of it. They decided instead to go play football and let the chips fall where they may — with a subtle confidence the road would end with a celebration for the ages Monday night in Miami Gardens.

“We've known we were going to do it, and I feel like we do it every week,” Moore said. “We earned our respect, and so they got to respect us now. We the champions.”

Questions will always surround Indiana, which is still nearly 200 games below .500 and may never truly shake the shackles of its past. There will be questions about longevity of success, questions about when the pixie dust will run dry.

But there should be no questions about this Indiana, the one that aced each test thrown its way and survived every last punch — all the way through cornerback Jamari Sharpe’s game-sealing interception with 44 seconds left.

“I mean, you really can't ask us if we legit now,” junior safety Amare Ferrell told Indiana Hoosiers On SI. “I mean, we just showed you we legit. 16–0, National Champions.”

Over 20 minutes after the Hoosiers clinched their first national title, the greatest team in school history sang “Indiana, Our Indiana,” one final time.

Yet while his disciples — and the thousands of crimson-clad onlookers around them — sang their hearts out, Cignetti didn’t mutter a word. He stood at the back of the stage, hands on hips, watching, smiling, absorbing the scene before him.

Cignetti marveled at his creation. He marveled at the team that took his message better than any other in his 15 years as a head coach, at the team that grew “exceptionally close,” at the team that never entered a warzone it didn’t like.

Perhaps most of all, he marveled at the manner his Hoosiers shook college football’s balance of power.

“I think we sent a message, first of all, to society,” Cignetti said. “That if you keep your nose to the grindstone and work hard and you've got the right people, anything's possible.”

But this never seemed possible. Not for Indiana, historically a basketball-crazed school in a basketball-crazed state. And not for Cignetti, who needed 40 years in the industry to secure a Power Four head coaching job.

Perhaps that’s what makes the celebrations so genuine, so powerful, so unforgettable. Hemby said he had no plans to sleep after the greatest night of his life. Cignetti joked his first Hoosier beer was so good, he thought about going back for another.

The only downside to Indiana’s success is the rampant clutter within players’ closets. Hemby was in the process of moving out, getting things consolidated and taking things home, but amid bowl-issued apparel and post-game celebratory merchandise, he’s received more gear in the last month than the entire season beforehand.

But those collectibles matter.

As Miami players filed out of Hard Rock Stadium, many carried their chairs — engraved with the College Football Playoff National Championship logo — with them. It’s the Hurricanes’ lone piece of memorabilia from a crushing defeat in their home stadium.

Indiana, meanwhile, capped its fourth consecutive game with a confetti shower — which Jones said will never get old.

And about those cigars? He’ll forever cherish them.

“After games like this,” Jones said, “Hell yeah.”

Over two hours after the game ended, confetti still remained on the field at Hard Rock Stadium, and the smell of cigar smoke lingered through the hallway outside Indiana’s locker room. The big screens on the stadium’s corners still showed “National Champions” surrounding Indiana’s logo.

There’s no more denying Indiana’s status as a college football power, no more wondering when Cignetti’s fever dream will end. The Hoosiers were on the brink of collapsing, but they never wilted under pressure. They made big plays in key moments and, as they’ve done all season, avoided catastrophe then forced their opponent into it.

But Monday night was more than an on-field statement. It was an announcement of arrival atop the food chain. It was an assurance that Indiana, its team and its fans, are ready for the rarified air of the sport’s elite programs.

And it was the final scene in the Cignetti-led, title-winning Hollywood film that forever changed the perception, and the history, of Indiana football.

“Indiana just isn't little old Indiana anymore, man,” Sarratt said. “Like, we're here to stay.”

And that, more than it’s ever been, is undeniable.