As the College Football season begins to wind down, the national championship hype builds up. The first three rounds have passed and a national championship will be crowned.
A common theme with all the teams that were in the final four, is that no one really saw them being that good this year. Indiana was in a lost place after losing many players from their college football playoff team from the previous season where they lost to Notre Dame in the first round. Oregon was down in the dumps after losing star quarterback Dillon Gabriel to the 2025 NFL draft and losing other offensive weapons.
Ole Miss wasn’t really viewed as a contender after losing a game to the Florida Gators to miss out on the college football playoffs. Miami was very close to making the playoffs with future NFL number 1 overall pick, quarterback Cam Ward leading the charge. Then they lost a close game to Syracuse to get kicked out of the playoff pool.
Now looking into the two semifinal games, they were nothing short of interesting. Miami squeaked by Ole Miss, 31-27, with transfer quarterback Carson Beck putting on a crazy performance to advance the Hurricanes. In the other game, Indiana beat up Oregon in a 56–22 smacking.
People were not expecting these teams to be here, as a school like Indiana hasn’t really been successful in football.
“IU has never really had a good football team, we are a basketball school,” English teacher Amy Hutter said, who is an IU alumni. “Last year’s success was also quite a surprise so I was hoping it would continue but never in my wildest dreams did I imagine they’d ever get to the championship game.”
Same goes with Miami, with not really having too much on paper success since the early 2000’s.
“Miami hasn’t really ever been anything crazy in my lifetime, so with them finally kind of popping off now, it’s kind of nice,” junior Emerson Lisowski said. “I never saw this coming, especially this year. I know we got Beck, but to be honest with you, I didn’t think he was that good when I would watch him at Georgia, so I didn’t really have high expectations this year. This year’s team has exceeded my expectations, especially with the grit they’ve shown.”
Equally so, these teams fought through adversity all year, even though their record might not show that.
Indiana has had some close games throughout the year where it looked like their undefeated record could be up for grabs.
“I think the biggest challenges were beating Penn St in the very last seconds of the game with that amazing TD catch in the back of the end zone,” Hutter said. “If they would’ve lost they may not have gotten to the Big Ten Championship and gotten the #1 seed. The other big challenge was beating Ohio St. in the Big Ten Championship game. After they did, I knew they really had a chance to do well in the playoffs.”
Miami had the rockier road, dropping some games and were very close to being ruled out by the committee to miss out on the CFP, but by some strokes of luck, they snuck in as the #10 seed.
“It was honestly nerve racking to watch the last few weeks. I thought we were cooked after dropping the games to Louisville and SMU,” Lisowski said. “Then we weren’t in our conference championship game, I thought we were doomed, but we were given a gift by Duke when they beat Virginia, and we had a small glimmer of hope to maybe make the playoffs. Though there was controversy on who should be in, Miami or Notre Dame, the committee honored the win against Notre Dame in the beginning of the season and we were in. Our road to the championship was arguably more insane. We went in and beat Texas A&M in College Station. Then we beat Ohio St., who everyone thought was unbeatable, then we had our clash with Ole Miss.”
Now as we look towards the big game, there are some things that each team needs to focus on to eventually be crowned national champions.
Indiana has been a wrecking ball for most of the year besides a few close games to some high quality opponents.
“I think the Hoosiers just need to play their game and keep doing what they have been doing well, not turning the ball over and scoring in the red zone,” Hutter said. “Their defense has to keep playing well and getting turnovers.”
Miami has been finding themselves throughout the year, trying to figure out what works best with the cast they have down in south beach.
“Miami just needs to be explosive and they win the game,” Lisowski said. “If our defense can hold Indiana even for a few drives, I think they have a good chance of winning. (Carson) Beck has been on fire for the playoff and if he continues even being above average, we have a chance, but I think we’re going to need a great performance out of him, or somebody to go off, for us to win this game.”
It has been a long year of college football, but there can only be one winner, As teams rose and fell, Indiana and Miami are the two teams to make it out the fire and are going to battle for the right to be crowned national champions.
