Indiana Football's Defense Needed a Play. Jamari Sharpe Made It: 'I F---ing Love You'

MIAMI GARDENS — For almost two seconds, everything froze.

The weight of the moment. The burden of Indiana’s past. The late-game push Miami made in its attempt to rob the Hoosiers of their first national championship.

Trailing 27–21 with less than one minute remaining in the College Football Playoff National Championship game, Miami quarterback Carson Beck dropped back to pass, looked left and fired toward receiver Keelan Marion down the sideline.

As Beck’s pass spiraled through the air — a moment where silence was broken only by the gasps of anticipation, where Indiana’s season teetered between fairytale and heartbreak — everything fell still.

Except for Jamari Sharpe.

When the ball stopped levitating and descended well short of its intended target, Sharpe, Indiana’s redshirt junior cornerback, leaped and intercepted the pass. Sharpe took a knee, then rose from the grass and sprinted to the endzone, where teammates hurried after him to jumpstart a national championship celebration Indiana once thought impossible.

“Oh, my gosh. The relief that went off our shoulders was an unbelievable feeling,” sophomore defensive tackle Mario Landino told Indiana Hoosiers On SI postgame. “You really can't make it up. I mean, it felt meant to be.”

Game sealed. History made. Immortality captured. No. 1 Indiana (16–0), unblemished and undeniable, earned a 27–21 win over No. 10 Miami (13–3) on Monday night at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.

“Honestly, I don't know why Carson Beck threw that,” Indiana sixth-year senior safety Louis Moore told Indiana Hoosiers On SI. “It wasn't open.”

Indiana cornerbacks coach Rod Ojong said the Hoosiers played cover two, and they knew Miami had a formation to Sharpe’s side where the Hurricanes ran a certain type of vertical route.

“We knew he had to funnel to his side and hinge with it,” Ojong told Indiana Hoosiers On SI after the game. “He just made a play at the top of the route.”

After his interception, Sharpe blacked out and took off his helmet, something Ojong joked he’ll address Wednesday. Junior safety Amare Ferrell, in hot pursuit, said he blacked out, too. Both remember the play, but very little of what happened thereafter. Fortunately, there’s an eternal collectible — the 24 karat gold trophy — built to ensure they’ll never forget it.

The moment itself is where legends are made. Sharpe forever etched his name into Indiana folklore — and the Miami native did so in his home stadium, against his home team, on the sport’s biggest stage.

“I just showed them tonight why they should have recruited me,” Sharpe said postgame. “But hey, I still love my hometown. It’s just an amazing feeling right now, man.”

A delirious, if euphoric, Sharpe swung his arms up and down while running from the endzone back to Indiana’s sideline with 44 seconds remaining to celebrate briefly with the rest of his teammates before the full party began.

Three minutes after the clock hit zero, Sharpe stood alone, stepping over cream and crimson-colored confetti he made fall inside Hard Rock Stadium. He extended his right arm, lifted his left hand and pointed toward his veins — full of proverbial ice after one of the most clutch plays in program history.

Wearing sunglasses in a dark Miami Gardens night, Sharpe soon began dancing. Teammates didn’t leave him alone for long. Several came up to pay their gratuity for clinching a win, and subsequent memories, sure to last a lifetime.

“I f—ing love you,” one assistant told Sharpe.

It’s only fitting Indiana’s defense controlled the Hoosiers’ title fate. At each stop, defensive coordinator Bryant Haines’ unit rose to the occasion. There were key takeaways here, big stops there, and a general suffocation of opposing offenses that put Indiana amongst the top 10 defenses in the nation.

Before the final drive, the Hoosiers’ defense dissected the situation. They’d allowed touchdowns on three of Miami’s first five drives in the second half, and they needed to keep the Hurricanes out of the endzone for the final 100 seconds.

There are no situations more pressurized than that, one where a national championship and a season’s worth of work hangs in the balance each snap. Indiana’s defense didn’t flinch, didn’t wilt. The Hoosiers embraced it.

“We told ourselves on the sideline, ‘We're going to have a chance to go win this thing,’” senior linebacker Aiden Fisher said postgame. “And I feel like that was kind of fitting for our team. Put it on us one more time and let the chips fall.”

Indiana redshirt junior linebacker Isaiah Jones acknowledged there was “a lot of pressure.” He also acknowledged he’d want it no other way — with a chance to be on the field for the game-deciding play.

The Hoosiers had full confidence they’d be on the right side of an iconic finish.

“There's no better team or defense that I want to be out there with in that moment,” Landino said. “And all year, we've been back against adversity, and we came up on top, right? That's just a testament to this team and God and everybody.”

Ferrell often tells his defensive backs that whenever Indiana needs a big play, somebody has to step up and make it. Sharpe rose to the occasion. That part was unsurprising to Ferrell — but Sharpe’s strong, two-handed snag was a pleasant development.

“It’s so funny,” Ferrell said, “because he dropped so many picks in practice, but he caught the one we needed the most.”

Sharpe’s game-winning interception was his first of the season and second of his career — the other came Nov. 18, 2023, against Michigan State. He played 816 defensive snaps this season without an interception. His 817th made history.

The 22-year-old Sharpe saw Indiana in some of its darkest days. He was part of Hoosier teams that went 4–8 in 2022 and 3–9 in 2023, a run that led to the firing of coach Tom Allen. Sharpe considered leaving but opted to stay. After starting nine games in 2023, he earned only three starts in 2024. Despite his demotion, he stayed loyal to Indiana once more.

On Monday night, Sharpe made perhaps the biggest play in program history — and the Miami native, on Miami soil, became Bloomington royalty.

“It's just a blessing to see how far that kid has come, man,” Ojong said. “When we got here, we knew he had all the ability in the world. We knew we had to work with him, and it was going to be a process, but the kid stuck with it instead of taking the easy way and getting in the portal.

“He believed in our plan, and I love that kid for that. It shows the process of where you can go when you stick through things. And man, he has a bright future.”