Four ways college football history can be made in the CFP national championship

The College Football Playoff is down to its final two teams, as the No. 1-seed Indiana Hoosiers and No. 10-seed Miami Hurricanes will face off Monday evening at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.

While both teams have earned their way to the big game, neither one of them was truly considered as a championship contender at the start of the season. Indiana opened the season as the No. 20 team in the country, while BetMGM gave Miami 35-to-1 odds at the start of the season.

With both programs having such unique journeys, history is bound to be made Monday evening. With that being said, here are four of the many ways college football may experience some history.

Indiana: First FBS program to finish 16-0, third all-time

Aside from marking Indiana's first football championship in program history, the Hoosiers would become the first FBS team in college football history to finish the year 16-0. The only other teams that have done so in the sport's history are North Dakota State, who accomplished that feat in 2019. The championship gave the program its eighth in nine years, but even they may not be the most dominant team in college football history.

To find the first 16-0 team in college football history, you'd have to go all the way back to Yale in 1894. The Bulldogs outscored opponents 485 to 13, a feat achieved 12 years before the forward pass became legal.

Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza. — Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza throws a pass as the Oregon Ducks. | Ben Lonergan/The Register-Guard / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Miami: First team to win a championship at home

This one's odd because it seems like something that would have already happened in the era of the Yale Bulldogs' run. With that being said, this year's championship game is being played at the Hurricanes' home field at Hard Rock Stadium. If Miami were to win, it would be the first program in college football history to do so at their home stadium.

Ironically, the Hurricanes are the away team in this scenario due to seeding.

Indiana: First team to win a title despite not meeting the "Blue-Chip Ratio"

The Hoosiers would be the least talented team in the modern era to win a championship. Well, that is at least according to the blue-chip ratio. CBS Sports' Bud Elliott created the "Blue-Chip Ratio," and it is used widely throughout the sport by coaches and even in video games. As explained by Elliott, teams with more four and five-stars than lower ranked recruits are the ones that win titles.

"To win the national championship, college football teams need to sign more four- and five-star recruits than two- and three-star players over the previous four recruiting classes," wrote Elliott.

If Indiana were to win Monday evening, it would be the first program since the inception to do so without meeting the minimum threshold of 50%. For reference, 57% of Miami's roster is a four or five-star recruit.

Miami: National championship before ACC Championship

The beauty of the expanded College Football Playoff is the fact that teams are able to make good on missteps made earlier in the season. For example, Miami's losses to SMU and Louisville would have kept them from even sniffing the playoff discussion in the four-team format. However, they were able to bounce back and are now one win away from playing for a title.

Interestingly enough, those two losses, along with the tiebreakers not going their way, kept the Hurricanes out of the ACC title game. So, if Miami were to win the title, they would have done so without ever winning a conference title in the ACC. They still would have one of the more impressive resumes, as they would have beaten No. 1 Indiana, No. 2 Ohio State, No. 6 Mississippi and No. 7 Texas A&M, but they'd still be chasing their first ACC title in school history for football.

It would mark the program's first title since 2001, which they won as members of the Big East. A conference that they had won nine conference titles in.