Indiana defeated Miami 27-21 to win the college football national championship.
Quarterback Fernando Mendoza scored a pivotal 12-yard touchdown on a fourth-down run.
Coach Curt Cignetti initially sent out the field-goal unit before deciding to go for it on fourth down.
MIAMI GARDENS, FL – Bray Lynch’s cigar smelled like celebration, and it must have tasted like victory, because the Indiana offensive lineman savored each puff.
In between triumphant draws, Lynch considered a question.
How will he remember Fernando Mendoza’s fourth-down touchdown run?
“That,” Lynch said, “might be the best moment of my life. It’s up there, for sure.”
Elsewhere in the locker room, Charlie Becker lit up at mention of Mendoza’s 12-yard run.
“Holy smokes,” Becker said. “Fernando is an absolute beast. I thought he was going to be tackled 10 yards ago, and this dude is just spinning and diving. It’s just a testament to his character.”
Becker caught a fourth-down pass earlier in the drive, before coach Curt Cignetti faced another kick-or-go decision a few plays later.
A review of the situation: 4th-and-4 inside the red zone. The Hoosiers could go for a chip-shot field goal to push their lead to six points, with fewer than 10 minutes remaining in the national championship game against Miami.
Or, keep the ball in the Heisman Trophy winner’s hands. Cignetti sent the field-goal unit onto the field. Then, he yanked them off, emphatically so, as offensive lineman Carter Smith tells it.
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“We have our kicking team out there for a little bit, and then Cig comes out on the field and he goes, ‘Get off the field! We’re going for it!’” Smith said.
At this point in his rendition of the story, Smith paused to pound his chest, showing you how he felt about his coach’s decision to send the offense back onto the field.
“I was like, ‘My juices are flowing. Let’s go, Coach! Don’t lie to me here!’” Smith said.
Play call: a quarterback draw.
Mendoza took a beating on this night going against the nation’s most ferocious pass rush. Three times, Miami sacked him. The Hurricanes hit him more times than that.
Lynch’s mindset on this fourth-down run: Don’t let the defender he was assigned to block make the tackle.
Consider that the collective mindset along the offensive line.
The blocking was good, but Mendoza needed to cut past one Hurricane and elude another diving defender to collect the four yards that would’ve been necessary for a first down. He kept moving. Up ahead, lineman Drew Evans and running back Kaelon Black teamed up to drive back linebacker Wesley Bissainthe.
Bissainthe finally slipped off the tandem block and lowered his shoulder pads into Mendoza at the 5-yard line. Mendoza lowered his pads, too.
He knocked Bissainthe to the turf. Mendoza stumbled, spun and dove — across the goal line.
“He’s running like a baby deer,” Lynch said, while giving his best play-by-play broadcast impersonation of the touchdown. “Spin moving like he’s Vince Young or Michael Vick. He’s going crazy. He’s a beast, and he found a way.
“Heisman. Heismendoza.”
That became the collective response throughout the Indiana roster.
“A Heisman moment,” cornerback D’Angelo Ponds concurred.
Updated score after Mendoza’s touchdown run: Indiana 24, Miami 14.
Pivotal points, when you consider Indiana won this national championship game 27-21.
“It’s just going to be on repeat in my head for the rest of my life,” defensive lineman Mario Landino, Mendoza’s roommate, said of that touchdown run.
Mendoza supplied several Heisman moments throughout this 16-0 season, including his game-winning completion to cap an iconic drive against Penn State.
There’s something about a pinballing touchdown run in a national championship, though, that just hits differently.
“That’ll be a snapshot in my head for years to come,” Smith said of the run. “I don’t think I’ll forget about that until I develop dementia.”
One by one, Mendoza’s teammates weighed in on their quarterback’s dogged, bulldozing, indefatigable scoring run, while cigar smoke, victory music and joy filled the locker room.
“What a run,” Lynch said, before he took another satisfied puff.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s senior national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.
