He spun out of trouble coming from his right, sidestepping his own splayed linemen in the process.
He touched his hand to the ground to keep his balance and stumbled forward.
And then, on a fourth-and-4 at Miami’s 12-yard line that felt more like fourth-and-destiny, Fernando Mendoza put the football in front of him and jumped, stretching as far as his frame would allow. Imagine if you will, if Superman were to leap horizontally for an end zone instead of vertically for the sky. That’s what Mendoza looked like.
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And that is what Mendoza is officially now to legions of Hoosiers – a superhero who has leapt program ineptitude in a single bound.
Indiana, 27-21 victors over Miami, has won a football national championship, as improbable a sentence ever typed in American sports history. A team that once was the losingest in all Division I is now the first to finish a season 16-0 since Yale in 1894, arriving to the top of the heap as only Indiana could: With a team full of no-stars, a quarterback no one wanted out of high school and a coach no one wanted for 27 years.
They are not misfits, just misses – players overlooked and undervalued by recruiting services and coaching staffs, by people who measured analytics and failed to consider heart. Forced to wait their turn, they let what could have been disillusion instead fester into determination. It grew and coagulated in a locker room that believed what no one else dared to dream.
“This is what happens when you believe,’’ running back Roman Hemby said. “Those guys, they’re my brothers. We’ve had each other’s backs when no one else did. That’s why we’re here.’’
Roman Hemby runs with the ball during the fourth quarter against the Miami Hurricanes. – Jamie Squire/Getty Images
It did not come easily. Turning over an iceberg never is. Miami, a 10-seed no one thought belonged in the College Football Playoff, made Mendoza look the most Clark Kent of anyone this playoff. The Canes left the Heisman Trophy winner literally bloodied and bruised, a hit busting open his lip in the first quarter of what turned into three sack night for Miami.
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And every time the Hoosiers landed what seemed like the decisive haymaker, Miami bounced back like some sort of whack-a-mole.
Indiana blocked a punt; Miami scored. Mendoza leapt into the end zone, Miami scored again, the game only ending when Jamari Sharpe, a Miami kid who dreamed of one day playing in the Dolphins home stadium, picked off Carson Beck near the goal line.
“I saw that ball in the air and I just thought ‘I can’t mess this is up,’’’ said Sharpe. “It doesn’t feel real. I always dreamed of this, and I can’t even explain what it feels like. I don’t have words.’’
Jamari Sharpe intercepts a pass intended for Keelan Marion of the Miami Hurricanes during the fourth quarter. – Alex Slitz/Getty Images
As Sharpe took a knee, all of Indiana erupted. From the shores of Miami Beach to Nick’s English Hut in Bloomington, a fan base that understandably lacked the fanaticism for football for years found itself in full stupor.
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“I know a lot of people thought this wasn’t possible. It probably is one of the greatest sports stories,’’ said head coach Curt Cignetti. “If I was smart, I’d probably retire. But we need the money. And what would I do? What would I do?”
The Hoosiers now own a rather special pair of bookends. Only two schools have recorded perfect seasons in both basketball and football – UCLA and now the Hoosiers. The symmetry for Indiana is nearly eerie. It was exactly 50 years ago that Bob Knight led IU to a perfect season and a championship, his 32 wins exactly double the 16 these Hoosiers collected.
But it is not a linear comparison. Knight had history to work with – the Hoosiers won two national titles under Branch McCracken. Cignetti had nothing.
Indiana played its first football game in 1887. The Hoosiers lost, 10-8, to Franklin College, setting a substandard for how the program largely existed until Cignetti stomped his way on to campus.
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There were blips in between. Bill Mallory’s teams had some decent runs in the 1980s as did Bo McMillan back in the 1940s.
But until Cignetti, the team had never finished a season with double-digit victories, let alone make history. It is why, frankly, Cignetti got the job. Other schools passed on him for decades, too afraid to turn their million-dollar franchises over to a coach from the likes of IUP, Elon and James Madison. Athletic director Scott Dolson had the freedom of failure to roll the dice.
Cignetti needed someone, in turn, to roll the dice on him.He found him in Mendoza.
Targeted for Yale until Cal took a flyer, he came to Bloomington in large part because his younger brother, Alberto, told him he should. This quarterback and head coach are an unlikely duo. Mendoza is an earnest people pleaser and Cignetti the stoic “don’t give a hoot”er.
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Mendoza admitted on Sunday that his fatal flaw is that he doesn’t like to say no. Asked if he’d be expecting a bunch of coaches to find their way to his office to pick his brain in the off season, Cignetti deadpanned, “I’m not really one to entertain in the office.’’
Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza holds the trophy after their win against Miami. – Marta Lavandier/AP
Yet in their dichotomy comes their power. Cignetti has full faith in his quarterback, and Mendoza a commitment to doing what he’s told. Never more so than with nine minutes left in the national title game.
Up just 17-14 and stymied all game by the Miami defense, Cignetti originally sent the field goal unit onto the field before calling a timeout to reconsider. When play resumed, he sent Mendoza out, calling a designed quarterback run.
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“A big constant we’ve really had all season is we bet on ourselves,’’ Mendoza said. “Whether it was the preseason when nobody thought we could make it, or on the biggest stage of the game, we bet on ourselves. So, we bet on ourselves one more time.’’
It will go down as inarguably one of the nerviest and gutsiest plays in the sport’s history, a near arrogant call for a program that previously had no right to be arrogant.
Indiana Hoosiers head coach Curt Cignetti looks on in the second quarter against the Miami Hurricanes. – Sam Navarro/Imagn Images/Reuters
At the Hoosiers’ hotel bar on the eve before the game, a fan was ordering at a bar amid a sea of red so deep that bartenders had run out of beer glasses.
“We should erect a statue to him tomorrow, if he wins,’’ he said. “This is absurd.’’
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He was talking about Cignetti. They might need room for one for Mendoza, too.
Football players have been beloved before. Has one ever been serenaded?
While crews set up the stage to present the trophy, the Hard Rock Stadium speakers blasted Abba’s “Fernando,” and a delirious sea of Hoosiers sang in full throat: “There was something in the air that night, the stars were bright, Fernando. They were shining for you and me, for liberty, Fernando.’’
On stage, the object of their affection fought back tears, uncharacteristically dropped a cuss word and then fought through a pack of photographers and reporters to find his way to the edge of the fences cordoning the players off from the fans on the field.
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There he found his parents in a swarm of extended family all wearing Mendoza gear. He bent over the barrier and wrapped Fernando Sr. and Elsa, whose battle with multiple sclerosis has rendered her wheelchair bound, in a bear hug.
Mendoza has spoken eloquently about his mother’s illness and how she is his source of inspiration. Now it was her turn. Her eyes glistening with tears and her son’s helmet sitting in her lap, she spoke of her son’s toughness and strength, though admitting on his decisive score she thought to herself, “You’re a quarterback, not a running back.”
No, he’s a superhero.
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