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.
Carson Beck will have plenty of fond memories to look back on from his college football career.
But it ended Monday in heartbreak.
With a chance to lead Miami on a drive for its sixth national championship, Beck threw an interception that sealed Indiana’s fate. His intended target on the play, Keelan Marion, never saw the ball in the air.
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With the clock ticking under two minutes, Miami’s defense held Indiana to a field goal that gave the Hoosiers a 27-21 lead. Beck then led the offense onto the field with 1:42 remaining, in need of a touchdown that could seal a national title on Miami’s home field.
Roughing penalty helps Miami advance to IU territory
Miami overcame a delay-of-game penalty with a pair of first downs that put them over midfield. The first first down of the drive arrived courtesy of a roughing-the-passer penalty that resulted in the back of Beck’s head hitting the turf.
With the Hurricanes facing first-and-10 at the Indiana 41, Beck decided to go for it all with 51 seconds remaining. Marion ran a go route down the left sideline, facing man coverage from cornerback Jamari Sharpe and safety help over the top.
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Beck launched a deep ball that never stood a chance.
The ball was short and thrown into double coverage. Sharpe pinpointed it for an interception at the 15-yard line as Marion continued to run toward the end zone.
With Miami out of timeouts, all that was left for the Hoosiers to clinch the national championship was to run out the clock. They did just that for a 27-21 win.
Beck will finish his college career with two national championships as a backup at Georgia, but none as a starter.
Beck talks late hit, fateful interception
The turnover was the first of the night for either team on a night when Beck completed 19-of-32 passes for 232 yards with 1 touchdown and the late interception.
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Beck was asked after the game how he was feeling on the last drive after the roughing-the-passer hit.
“My ears are ringing,” Beck said, per ESPN’s Pete Thamel.
Beck also spoke with reporters about the game-sealing interception.
“The guy made a really good play,” Beck said. “They were in cover 2 and he sunk with no flat threat, made a really good play on the ball.
“So again, a lot of credit to them and their defense. They played really, really well tonight.”
Marion, in tears, says he never saw the ball
Per Thamel, Marion was in tears in the postgame locker room with a towel over his head. He said the interception was his “mistake” and that he didn’t realize that Beck had thrown the pass.
“I didn’t even know he had threw the ball,” Marion said. … “I got to look for the ball and make that play for him. So that’s all on me.”
Here’s a look at the Marion’s route from the sideline near the end zone. Marion didn’t look back for the ball until he crossed the 20-yard line after Sharpe had made his break. By then, it was too late.
Beck’s long college career comes to an end
The interception concludes a college career for Beck that started at Georgia in 2020 and featured five seasons including a redshirt campaign with the Bulldogs before he utilized his extra COVID-19 season to transfer to Miami.
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Beck’s teams lost just six games that he started over his college career. And Monday night’s loss ended like four of those six did.
Miami didn’t win the ACC with Beck at quarterback, but was granted a controversial berth in the College Football Playoff. Beck and the Hurricanes ultimately proved the selection committee correct by winning three playoff games to advance to Monday’s championship game.
They had a chance at the end to upset a historic Indiana team that surged to the top of college football with dominant units on both sides of the ball following decades of irrelevance.
It’s a lot to be proud of. But it’s not likely to soothe the pain of how Monday’s championship game was lost at the end.
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — About half an hour before Curt Cignetti stood on a stage and lifted a trophy, before Mark Cuban put on the T-shirt they hand out to the national champions, before tens of thousands of fans sang ABBA’s “Fernando” in unison as red-and-white confetti fell on the field at Hard Rock Stadium, there was a moment that defined all of it.
With 9 minutes, 27 seconds remaining on the clock, the greatest turnaround story in the history of American sports was wobbling toward the finish line. Indiana hadn’t put Miami away, and the Hurricanes were starting to claw back their momentum.
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In that moment, it felt very much like four yards could be the difference between a championship that will be remembered forever and a lifetime of second guessing.
Initially, Cignetti sent his field goal unit onto the field. Taking a six-point lead would have been the safe, by-the-book play. But it wouldn’t have been the right one. Carter Smith, Indiana’s left tackle, watched Cignetti tell his kicking team he changed his mind.
It was only one fourth down in a game with a lot of big plays left. But if you’re trying to describe how the program with the most losses in the history of college football ended up two years later as the first 16-0 national champion in the sport’s modern era, it resides somewhere in between Cignetti’s decision to pull his field-goal team off the field and Mendoza bullying through the line of scrimmage, cutting back to his right when he saw a defender closing in and stretching to the end zone for the touchdown and a 10-point lead.
“A big constant we’ve had is to bet on ourselves,” Mendoza said. “Whenever they called that play, we knew we’re going to bet on ourselves one more time in the biggest stage of the game. It wasn’t the perfect coverage for it, but I trusted my linemen and everybody had a gritty performance today. It was the least I could do for my brothers.”
MIAMI GARDENS, FL – JANUARY 19: Head Coach Curt Cignetti of the Indiana Hoosiers lifts the National Champsionship trophy following the Indiana Hoosiers versus the Miami Hurricanes College Football Playoff National Championship Game Presented by AT&T on January 19, 2026, at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, FL. (Photo by Peter Joneleit/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
(Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
As Indiana built to this, from the upset win at Oregon in October, to the last-second escape at Penn State in November, to beating Ohio State for the Big Ten title, to romping through the playoff with wins over programs that wrote the history of the sport, everybody wanted to figure out how.
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Sometimes, the only explanation is watching it happen.
All the things that weren’t supposed to happen in college football? Indiana made them happen. The Hoosiers cracked the playoff. They made blue-bloods feel blue. They won the national championship.
And at the end, as Jamari Sharpe snagged the interception that secured Indiana’s 27-21 victory, there was little doubt about what it meant: In a sport where upward mobility has forever been slow and grueling, leading often to a dead end, what Indiana pulled off in two years is the most unlikely run in the history of American sports.
“Ever. Ever,” said Cuban, who won an NBA title as the Dallas Mavericks’ owner and is now helping fund his alma mater’s roster. “I mean, the Miracle on Ice, I don’t think there’s anything compared to this. To go from the outhouse to the penthouse, to win 16 games in a row, I mean, who’d have thunk? I don’t think anybody could ever imagine in their wildest of wildest dreams.”
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Cignetti had this dream early in life. The son of College Football Hall of Fame coach Frank Cignetti, who got fired after four years at West Virginia but became a legend in D-II, spent his childhood envisioning himself as “a Bear Bryant kind of coach.” But the business never handed him those cards to play.
As he worked his way up the ladder, he too often landed on coaching staffs that lost — Rice, Temple, Pittsburgh — until Nick Saban hired him as the recruiting coordinator and receivers coach at the beginning of his Alabama dynasty.
“That tied it together for me,” Cignetti said. “I was hitting the big 5-0 and wasn’t a coordinator, wasn’t on track to get a head-coaching job and didn’t want to be a 60-year-old assistant. I saw what those lives looked like as a kid. I took an unprecedented chance in this business.”
He became the head coach at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, the same place his father coached. As far as he was concerned, the Bear Bryant dream was long gone. It turned out the journey was only beginning.
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From IUP to Elon to James Madison and then Indiana — the worst of the worst. Nobody won there, and even those who had a little success eventually got fired too because nothing was built to last there. It was a graveyard. At least maybe Cignetti could make some money.
A photograph of Indiana’s nearly-empty Memorial Stadium, taken during the first game of the Cignetti era in August 2024, began to go viral Monday on social media. It was a snapshot of what Hoosier football used to be: a program that had been dead for decades, a lost cause, a waste of time.
You couldn’t even really call Indiana’s fans long-suffering. In basketball, the sport Indiana fans used to care about above all else, they’ve suffered. But is there really any suffering if there’s no hope in the first place?
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“There wasn’t an emphasis on football, plain and simple,” Cignetti said. “Basketball school.”
And then, he just … changed it. Some of the best parts of his James Madison teams came with him. He demanded investment and attitude. He out-evaluated everyone in the transfer portal, and as Indiana’s 2024 season unfolded, leading to a first-round playoff loss at Notre Dame, it was clear he was outcoaching a lot of the game’s stalwarts, too.
MIAMI GARDENS, FL – JANUARY 19: QB Fernando Mendoza #15 of the Indiana Hoosiers runs for a touchdown in the fourth quarter during the Indiana Hoosiers versus the Miami Hurricanes College Football Playoff National Championship Game Presented by AT&T on January 19, 2026, at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, FL. (Photo by Peter Joneleit/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
(Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Which brings us back to the fourth quarter and Cignetti debating whether to kick that field goal. They had put in a quarterback draw for Mendoza this week — not exactly the most graceful runner — because they thought they might get the right look to call it against Miami.
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In that moment, the guts, coaching and toughness that had carried Indiana to the brink of a title was worth betting on one more time.
“We had to block a little different than we normally do,” Cignetti said. “That was a 45-minute discussion in the staff room how we were going to call it and how we were going to do it. Fernando, I know he comes off as the All-American guy, but he has the heart of a lion.”
That’s what the world never saw about Indiana, not until it discarded Alabama in the quarterfinals and ran roughshod over Oregon in the semifinals. After that, everyone knew it was real.
But the beauty of college football is that you are not supposed to solve it. You’re supposed to strive and struggle, have your heart broken, come back for more. At the end of the day, the blue bloods take home the trophy.
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That’s how it’s supposed to be. That’s how it’s always been.
And in the final game between Indiana and history, it was against Miami — a five-time national champion — playing in its home stadium. It was the ultimate test. And at the end, when Indiana committed an uncharacteristic false start penalty that prevented the Hoosiers from a game-ending first down, it gave Miami a chance to rewrite the story.
Instead, it was a Miami native and son of a former Hurricane, Jamari Sharpe, who snagged the championship-clinching interception. Just one more layer to a story you couldn’t invent if you tried.
“It’s an amazing feeling, man, coming from where I come from, always wanted to be in the national title, always wanted to play in the Dolphins’ stadium,” Sharpe said. “Tonight was my first night being able to do that, then making the game-winning play like that, I still can’t believe it. It might hit me in the morning.”
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It will all hit us when we wake up to a reality where Indiana — yes, Indiana — is the national champion. These days, the world of college football often feels chaotic, sometimes even dark. But this felt pure — not because it was Indiana, but because of how it happened.
The fundamentals. The self-belief. The three-star recruits who played like superstars, turning everything we knew about college football upside down.
“I know a lot of people thought it was never possible,” Cignett said. “It probably is one of the greatest sports stories of all time. But it’s because of these guys.”
Mendoza was 16-of-27 passing for 186 yards in the win. He scrambled for a huge touchdown in the fourth quarter, which he only managed after breaking a tackle near the goal line to help seal the win.
But throughout the game, as they often were throughout the College Football Playoff run, ESPN cameras frequently spotted the Mendoza family watching along. Mendoza’s mother, Elsa, has lived with multiple sclerosis for nearly two decades. She now uses a wheelchair. Mendoza’s father is always seen sitting next to Elsa, never on his feet, celebrating right along with her.
“I was diagnosed about 18 years ago, but of course you never knew that. You and [your brother] Alberto were so young, and I was doing fine … and mostly I didn’t want you to worry. It just felt like this impossible thing to place on you guys,” Elsa wrote in a letter to Mendoza in The Players Tribune last month. “On my sweet boys … It wasn’t until five years ago, when I got COVID, that things started to go downhill in a way where there was no more hiding it. It was during football season, and I realized I wasn’t going to be able to travel. And the thought of you wondering if I supported you any less, because suddenly I wasn’t at your games? I hated that.
“So that’s when I knew we had to sit you and your brother down … But you’ve made it so much easier. And you’ve done that in the sweetest, strongest, most Fernando way possible — by making me feel the exact opposite of embarrassed. You’ve made me feel seen.”
Naturally, Elsa was all smiles on the field after the win.
“Every hug with him, I know that sounds so cliché, but this is just so special because I know how bad he wanted it and how hard he worked to get here,” Elsa said. “That hug means the world.”
The 2025-26 bowl season is over and the Indiana Hoosiers are the national champions after a historic 16-0 run to the title. Here’s how the whole bowl season played out.
Results
Monday, Jan. 19
College Football Playoff National Championship Game
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Friday, Jan. 9
Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl (College Football Playoff semifinal)
Thursday, Jan. 8
Vrbo Fiesta Bowl (College Football Playoff semifinal)
Friday, Jan. 2
Holiday Bowl
AutoZone Liberty Bowl
Duke’s Mayo Bowl
Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl
Thursday, Jan. 1
Allstate Sugar Bowl (College Football Playoff quarterfinal)
Rose Bowl presented by Prudential (College Football Playoff quarterfinal)
Capital One Orange Bowl (College Football Playoff quarterfinal)
Wednesday, Dec. 31
Goodyear Cotton Bowl (College Football Playoff quarterfinal)
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Moments before kickoff here, while on the podium during ESPN College GameDay’s live segment, Nick Saban offered millions of people watching from home his theory on the Big Ten’s most recent dominance of this sport.
In short, Saban attributed the Big Ten’s latest success to its schools using the loosening of athlete-compensation rules to coax Southern athletes — traditionally staying nearby in the SEC — to move north of the Mason-Dixon Line.
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“You’ll never convince me otherwise,” Saban said, “because people in the South would not go to the North unless you paid them.”
Twisting in the knife, Saban then slipped on the hat of the team he predicted would win it all: Miami.
And, in doing so, the Hoosiers — a confounding 16-0 two years after finishing 3-9 — delivered the Big Ten (those Northerners!) a remarkable and unexpected third consecutive title for the first time in 73 years.
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“People down South … they play some great ball and they’re very physical,” Indiana offensive lineman Carter Smith said afterward, “but, you know, some people just need to open their eyes and see what’s going on up here.”
Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti has turned a historic losing program into a national champion in just a two-year span.
(Carmen Mandato via Getty Images)
Up here? The land of cornfields and cattle. Motown and deep-dish. The Great Lakes and the Breadbasket. The Motor City and snowplows.
This is a place of hardworking, blue-collar folks who say things like, “You betcha” and “Uff da!” They slurp “pop” with their cheese curds and, on many weekend nights, get “schnockered” on some of the best beer you’ll ever drink.
But on this Monday, in one of the deepest geographically southern places in America, amid a perfect 60-degree day (a brisk summer night for Midwesterners), Indiana, the place of farmland and fall foliage, polished off one of the most dramatic turnarounds in industry history.
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“College football has changed quite a bit, the balance of power also,” Indiana coach Curt Cignetti said at the postgame news conference here.
Perhaps a new villain of college football is emerging — a conference so dominant that many nationally shake their fists in fury.
While the SEC failed to advance to a national championship game for a third straight year, the Big Ten three-peated — a stunning about-face in college football’s pecking order. A league that won three titles in 25 years, from 1997-2022, has claimed a trio.
“Just maybe another conference isn’t all superior in all the land,” says one Big Ten official, a jest at the SEC. “Just maybe!”
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Afterward, Big Ten officials, flooding the field in celebration, held up their ring, middle and index finger.
The last three football national champions derive from contiguous states inside a 300-mile radius mostly incorporating southern Indiana, central Ohio and southeastern Michigan.
“It’s unbelievable,” Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti said. “It means so much for Indiana, but it means a lot for the entire league. What Indiana has done in two years, I’ve never seen anything like it in all of the years I’ve been in sports.”
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Said Petitti about the Big Ten’s three titles: “I feel like we’re just getting started.”
To put the Big Ten’s stretch in perspective, consider this: The last time the league won three straight football titles, the Nazis were gearing up for a takeover in Germany, the Manhattan Project began developing the atomic bomb and the iconic film Casablanca premiered.
In fact, it was so long ago that the Ohio State team that capped the three-year run in 1942 beat that season an independent football club called “Iowa Preflight,” and the Buckeyes’ only loss that year was attributed to a mass outbreak of an intestinal disorder from players drinking unsanitary water from a fountain.
You betcha, the Big Ten is back!
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“It’s Tony Petitti! He’s our guy!” Indiana athletic director Scott Dolson screamed with glee into a reporter’s recorder.
Dolson’s quote came with intent, directing praise to a man who for many months now has been the target of national criticism for ideas (not all his but the league’s as a whole) that often rattle cages: a 24-team playoff format and the pursuit of private-equity, just to name a couple.
Some might say that Petitti is the bull and college sports is the china shop. But behind him is a league of administrators who are supporting and encouraging the decisions.
And now before him on the field is yet another one of his schools winning it all.
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“The Indiana story. I don’t think there’s anything else that’s been like this,” Petitti said. “What it means for Indiana and the fans … the transformation around this. Look at the turnout and what happened in the Rose Bowl, in Atlanta and what we’ve seen tonight.”
Despite playing in its opponent’s home stadium, Indiana fans — its red-clad legion — out-numbered Miami fans nearly 2-to-1.
Afterward, Dolson stood shocked.
“I can’t believe it,” he barely uttered out of his mouth.
Five years ago, Dolson and school president Pamela Whitten made a decision: Indiana must be good in football. Whitten said the staff “realigned the whole athletic department” and raised funds to transition to the world of NIL, the transfer portal and revenue sharing.
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The final piece happened two years ago, when the school spent $15 million to fire Tom Allen and replace him with the 60-something-year-old coach from James Madison.
“We happened to hire the best coach in America,” said Whitten, herself a southern lady, raised in Tennessee and educated in south Louisiana. “Indiana is the best university in the country and now we have the best football team in the country.”
The best school, the best coach, the best university.
The biggest alumni base in the country, too (more than 800,000).
Cignetti, his players and this crew of administrators managed to turn the losingest program in college football into the most winning in the last two seasons: 27-2.
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“It was because there wasn’t an emphasis on football,” Cignetti said afterward, explaining IU’s history. “Basketball school. You got to be good in football nowadays. We’ve got a president that comes from the South who loves football and an AD who is a tremendous fundraiser and the largest alumni base in the country.”
There’s one thing that Cignetti would like to get off his chest, too, he says.
In a comment maybe directed at his former boss, Saban, or others who point to cash as a reason for the success, the coach quipped, “Our NIL is nowhere what people think it is, so you can throw that out.”
The Indiana Hoosiers are the new kings of college football. They claimed their first National Championship, in football, Monday night defeating Miami 27-21. Andy Staples, Ross Dellenger and Steven Godfrey join each other in Miami and discuss how the Hoosiers came away with the win.
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Then, the guys discuss Nick Saban’s comments from Monday night. On GameDay, Nick Saban made the claim that NIL is the only reason the Big Ten has been successful recently. The crew reacts to Saban’s comments. They also look at how Curt Cignetti turned this Indiana program into a national champion in just two seasons. Is Indiana the new blueprint for success? How should some of the other coaches around college football feel that Coach Cignetti was able to turn the program around so quickly?
Lastly, Andy, Ross and Godfrey talk about the latest drama with the transfer portal. It appears Miami is trying to lure Darian Mensah away from Duke. The problem is that Mensah has a very large NIL deal to be Duke’s quarterback, and they do not appear willing to let him out of it. The guys explain the whole situation and discuss how they think it might turn out.
Get caught up on College Football with College Football Enquirer.
Indiana wins the College Football Playoff National Championship Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images
(Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)
0:00:00 – Indiana Hoosiers with the National Championship
Naomi Osaka has experienced plenty of success at the Australian Open over her career. The 28-year-old has won the event twice, with her most recent win coming in 2021. While Osaka hasn’t won a major since then, she usually performs well at the event.
So it should come as no surprise that Osaka won her first-round match Tuesday. Osaka dispatched Antonio Ružić, winning 6-3, 3-6, 6-4. With the win, Osaka advanced to the second round, where she’ll take on Sorana Cîrstea on Thursday.
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While Osaka did drop a set Tuesday, she was strong overall during the match. Osaka registered 11 aces vs. Cîrstea and had a 72 percent win percentage on her first serves. Her serves, which came in nearly 30 km/h faster than Cîrstea’s, proved to be a huge issue for her Croatian opponent.
Though Osaka deserves credit for her play, her outfit arguably received more attention after the match. Osaka was asked about her outfit choice, saying she modeled it after a jellyfish.
Osaka reached the third round of the Australian Open last year, and will look to once again make it to that stage if she can beat Cîrstea on Thursday.
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Taylor Fritz, Jannik Sinner advance to next round
It took Taylor Fritz a little while to get going, but the American pulled out the win in the first round of the Australian Open. After going to a tiebreak in the first set and then losing the second set, Fritz recovered to take the next two sets and defeat Valentin Royer 7-6, 5-7, 6-1, 6-3.
Fritz, who came into the event ranked No. 9, picked up 24 aces in the win. With the win, he’ll take on Vít Kopřiva on Thursday.
Fritz has experienced success at the Australian Open in recent years, making it to at least the third round of the event in six of the past seven years.
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While things looked dicey for Fritz momentarily, Jannik Sinner had no such issues. The Italian advanced in just two sets (6-2, 6-1) over his first-round opponent, Hugo Gaston, after Gaston was forced to retire after the second set. Gaston, who was coming back from an Achilles injury in November, was emotional on the court following the decision to stop the match.
Sinner offered kind words to his opponent before leaving the court.
With the win, Sinner will take on James Duckworth on Thursday.
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🚨 Headlines
🏈 NFL coaching carousel: The Bills fired Sean McDermott after nine seasons, while the Giants (John Harbaugh), Falcons (Kevin Stefanski), Titans (Robert Saleh) and Dolphins (Jeff Hafley) hired new head coaches.
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🏀 Disaster for Golden State: Warriors star Jimmy Butler suffered a torn ACL during Monday’s win over the Heat, ending his season and likely altering Golden State’s plans at the trade deadline. Brutal blow.
⚾️ Bichette to New York: Bo Bichette is heading to the Mets on a three-year, $126 million deal. The former Blue Jays shortstop is expected to play third base in Queens despite having never played that position in the major or minor leagues.
🏒 Goalie fight! San Jose’s Alex Nedeljkovic and Florida’s Sergei Bobrovsky dropped gloves and fought during the third period of the Sharks’ win on Monday, marking the first fight between NHL goalies since 2020.
🏀 Wildcats, Huskies still on top: Arizona, one of three undefeated men’s teams (Nebraska, Miami-Ohio), remains atop the men’s AP poll. UConn, one of two undefeated women’s teams (Vanderbilt), remains atop the women’s AP poll.
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🏆 Hoosiers complete storybook season
(Yahoo Sports)
Indiana beat Miami, 27-21, on Monday night in South Florida to win the program’s first national championship, complete their perfect 16-0 season and author the greatest turnaround American sports has ever seen.
An unlikely champion: Indiana had 100-1 preseason odds to win the national title, making them one of the biggest long-shot champions in sports history. Add in their status as a perennial doormat and I’d argue only Leicester City’s unthinkable 2015-16 Premier League title (5,000-1 preseason odds) tops what Curt Cignetti’s Hoosiers accomplished this season.
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“Back when I was waxing the staff table at [Indiana University of Pennsylvania] on Thanksgiving weekend … did I ever think something like this was possible? Probably not. But if you keep your nose down in life and keep working, anything is possible.”
— Cignetti, whose head coaching journey from D2 IUP (2011-16) to FCS Elon (2017-18) to FCS/FBS JMU (2019-2023) to the very top of college football after just two years in Bloomington is simply remarkable.
Iconic. (Carmen Mandato/Getty Images)
Highlight of the night: There were a handful of plays that defined this game — none bigger than Fernando Mendoza’s fourth-down TD run in the fourth quarter. It was a gutsy call by Cignetti, and the Heisman winner delivered, breaking multiple tackles before diving headfirst into the end zone for a 24-14 lead.
These days, the world of college football often feels chaotic, sometimes even dark. But this felt pure — not because it was Indiana, but because of how it happened. The fundamentals. The self-belief. The three-star recruits who played like superstars, turning everything we knew about college football upside down.
Game notes:
Welcome to the club: Indiana is the first school to win its maiden FBS national championship since Florida claimed its first title in 1996.
50 years later: Indiana now has the most recent undefeated national champions in both football and men’s basketball. Bob Knight’s squad went 32-0 en route to winning the 1976 title.
Double the hardware: Mendoza joins Derrick Henry (2015), Joe Burrow (2019) and DeVonta Smith (2020) as the only players to win the Heisman Trophy and the CFP title in the same season.
Midwest supremacy: The Big Ten has now won three straight national titles (Michigan, Ohio State, Indiana) for the first time since 1940-42 (Minnesota, Minnesota, Ohio State), with the Wolverines, Buckeyes and Hoosiers all located inside a 300-mile radius mostly incorporating southern Indiana, central Ohio and southeastern Michigan. Has the South lost football?
The 2026 NBA All-Star Game starters were announced Monday, with Lakers guard Luka Dončić (3.4 million) and Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo (3.2 million) receiving the most votes from fans.
How it works: Fans are responsible for 50% of the vote, while NBA players (25%) and a media panel (25%) account for the rest. For the first time in the exhibition’s near-75-year history, there are no positional requirements for lineups. That extends to the seven reserves from each conference, who will be selected by head coaches on Feb. 1.
(Yahoo Sports)
Notably absent: LeBron James’ 21-year streak as an All-Star starter has officially come to an end. He finished eighth in fan voting, one spot ahead of Rockets forward Kevin Durant and one spot behind Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards.
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As a reminder: There’s a new USA vs. World round-robin format this year. Ideally, voting will fill the 24 spots with 16 Americans and eight internationals, forming three teams of eight. If those numbers aren’t reached organically, NBA commissioner Adam Silver will pick additional All-Stars so that each group hits its mark.
For the 15th consecutive season, either the Patriots or Chiefs have reached the AFC Championship Game. The last time both franchises failed to make it this far was in 2010, when the Steelers beat the Jets (in Gang Green’s most recent playoff game).
Denver is the biggest home underdog as a No. 1 seed in a conference title game since the 1970 merger after losing Bo Nix to a broken ankle. They’ll turn to backup Jarrett Stidham, who hasn’t thrown a single pass all season.
Fun fact: The coaching matchup in this game is Mike (Vrabel) vs. Sean (Payton), while the coaching matchup in the NFC title game is also Mike (Macdonald) vs. Sean (McVay).
NFC: Rams (+2.5) at Seahawks
The NFC West foes meet for the third time this season after splitting the first two games with nearly the exact same number of points scored (58-57) and total yards (830-829). The Rams were the No. 1 scoring offense during the regular season (30.5 points per game), while the Seahawks were the No. 1 scoring defense (17.2).
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Seattle is back in the NFC Championship Game for the first time since 2014, which had been the conference’s fourth-longest drought ahead of only the Cowboys (1995), Bears (2010) and Giants (2011).
Los Angeles has won 10 playoff games under Sean McVay, who has twice as many postseason wins before the age of 40 as any other head coach in NFL history. He turns 40 on Saturday.
Super Bowl odds: The Seahawks are favored to hoist the Lombardi Trophy (+150 at BetMGM), followed by the Rams (+220), Patriots (+250) and Broncos (+1300), whose odds cratered after Nix’s injury.
*Wild stat: Caleb Williams’ last-ditch heave marked the fourth time in NFL postseason history that a team scored a game-tying TD (plus the PAT) in the last 30 seconds of the fourth quarter. All four of those teams ended up losing in overtime (1987 Seahawks, 2004 Chargers, 2015 Packers).
🌎 The world in photos
(Cliff Hawkins/Getty Images)
🇺🇸 Honolulu, Hawaii — Chris Gotterup (-16) opened 2026 with a victory, winning the Sony Open by two strokes on Sunday to claim the first event of the new PGA Tour season, and the third of his young career.
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On the rise: The 26-year-old Maryland native, who turned pro in 2022, is up to a career-best ranking of No. 17 after becoming just the sixth golfer with at least three PGA Tour wins since the start of 2024.
Sadio Mané has cemented himself as one of the greatest African players ever. (Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)
🇲🇦 Rabat, Morocco — Senegal won their second Africa Cup of Nations on Sunday, beating Morocco, 1-0 in extra time, after a pair of controversial calls in stoppage time led to a lengthy delay and a spectator brawl.
How it went down: Senegal had a goal disallowed and Morocco was awarded a penalty on two questionable calls just minutes apart. Furious, Senegal’s coach led his team off the field in protest as fans began brawling. Players didn’t return for 15 minutes, after which Morocco missed the penalty and Senegal ultimately won on Pape Gueye’s goal in extra time.
Federer waves goodnight to the crowd. (James D. Morgan/Getty Images)
🇦🇺 Melbourne, Australia — The Australian Open kicked off on Saturday with its first-ever formal opening ceremony. 87-year-old Rod Laver sat courtside in the arena named for him and Roger Federer stole the show as the star of a pair of exhibition matches.
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More history for Djokovic: Novak Djokovic’s first-round victory was his 100th at the Australian Open, making him the first player to reach the century mark at three Grand Slams. He has 101 at Roland Garros, 102 at Wimbledon, and could reach 100 at the U.S. Open later this year (95).
Bryan Mbeumo celebrates scoring United’s first goal. (Joe Prior/Visionhaus via Getty Images)
🏴 Manchester, England — Manchester United stunned Manchester City, 2-0, in Saturday’s Derby, snapping City’s 13-match unbeaten streak in interim manager Michael Carrick’s debut with the Red Devils.
Title chances dwindling: City, which managed just one shot on target in the loss, are now seven points behind league-leader Arsenal after going four straight matches without a win.
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📺 Watchlist: Tuesday, Jan. 20
Spurs vs. Rockets in an all-Texas clash. Who ya got? (Ronald Cortes/Getty Images)
🏀 NBA on NBC
Four Western Conference powers take the floor in tonight’s doubleheader, with the Rockets hosting the Spurs in the first game (8pm ET) and the Nuggets hosting the Lakers in the second (10pm).
Weathering the storm: Denver (29-14) has gone 7-4 since losing Nikola Jokić to a knee injury in late December. The three-time MVP is expected to return by month’s end.
⚽️ Champions League
Inter Milan hosts Arsenal (3pm, Paramount+) in a matchup between the first-place teams in Serie A and the English Premier League to headline the penultimate matchday of the league phase.
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Where it stands: With two matchdays left, the top eight teams in position to advance directly to the Round of 16 are Arsenal, Bayern Munich, PSG, Manchester City, Atalanta, Inter Milan, Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid.
More to watch:
🎾 Australian Open: Second round (7pm, ESPN+; 9pm, ESPN2) … Carlos Alcaraz, Novak Djokovic, Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Świątek headline the action in Melbourne.
🏒 NHL: Bruins at Stars (7:30pm, TNT); Devils at Oilers (10pm, TNT) … Edmonton’s Connor McDavid leads all players with 85 points (30 goals, 55 assists) in 50 games played.
🏀 NCAAM: UCF at No. 9 Iowa State (7pm, CBSSN); Indiana at No. 3 Michigan (7pm, Peacock); LSU at No. 16 Florida (7pm, ESPN2); No. 15 Vanderbilt at No. 20 Arkansas (9pm, ESPN)
⛳️ TGL: Jupiter Links vs. Los Angeles (7pm, ESPN) … Max Homa, Akshay Bhatia and Kevin Kisner vs. Justin Rose, Collin Morikawa and Sahith Theegala.
Trivia answer: LeBron James (42,727 points); Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (38,387); Karl Malone (36,928); Kobe Bryant (33,643); Michael Jordan (32,292)
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