Fernando Mendoza admitted that he was a little confused about the coverage Miami presented on his incredible fourth-down touchdown run.
The Heisman Trophy winner put the Hoosiers up 24-14 with less than 10 minutes to go in Indiana’s 27-21 national championship game win when he dove into the end zone on what immediately became an iconic play.
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As Indiana faced a fourth-and-4, Mendoza took off up the middle and broke multiple tackles before leaping across the goal line.
“The coverage before — they were in the coverage where that play would work,” Indiana coach Curt Cignetti told ESPN after the game. “We put it in for this game. It’s quarterback draw but it was blocked differently. And we rolled the dice and said they’re going to be in it again and they were and we blocked it well and he broke a tackle or two and got in the end zone.”
Mendoza said it wasn’t that straightforward. When asked about the play on ESPN’s “SportsCenter” after the game, Mendoza said that the play had an option component to it. If Mendoza saw a different type of coverage than what Indiana was anticipating, he could have thrown the ball.
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“We called the quarterback draw and we were hoping they’d do a [cover] 2 Tampa drop eight where they basically kind of like defend in front of the line, it being fourth-and-5 and us likely to throw the ball in the red zone,” Mendoza said. “We were anticipating them, ‘Hey let’s drop back, let’s make Mendoza throw in a tight window to one of his stud receivers’ which, you know, is a good thought. However they didn’t come out in that.
“They came out in something that was a little bit of that, a little bit not and … play clock rolling down, I’m like ‘Screw it here we go.’ I see half the field going zone, half the field going man I’m like ‘Wow, if it’s man I’m supposed to throw it, if it’s zone I’m supposed to run it so I’m like, ‘you know what, screw it, I’m gonna run it myself, I’m going to die on that field’ and we got in.”
In fact, Mendoza said that the run-pass option was the same play that Indiana had used in a critical moment once before when the Heisman winner had thrown a pass.
“Nearly a throw. Nearly a throw,” he said when asked if he really did have the option to pass on the play. “It was a very similar play — it was basically the same exact play we won when we came back at Autzen Stadium in Oregon.”
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Indiana beat Oregon 30-20 in October after Mendoza found Elijah Sarratt in man coverage for the go-ahead score in the fourth quarter.
Miami defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman told reporters after the game that he and his staff knew before the snap that Mendoza could take off with the ball like he did. However, the coaches couldn’t communicate that to the players in time.
Miami quickly cut Indiana’s lead back to three points again at 24-21 following Mendoza’s touchdown run, but the Hurricanes’ chances of a win ended with less than a minute to go when Jamari Sharpe picked off Carson Beck. It was the first turnover of the game for either team. And since Miami had no timeouts remaining when Sharpe intercepted the ball, Indiana just needed to run two snaps to end the game.
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