STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Indiana University has won the national championship in college football. They beat the Miami Hurricanes Monday night to win their first title ever. Never even been close. We called Zach Osterman to talk about this. He covers Indiana University sports for the IndyStar in Indianapolis. Welcome, sir.
ZACH OSTERMAN: Hey. Thanks for having me.
INSKEEP: And I'll mention you're in Miami. You saw the game last night. I am assuming that when you attended Indiana University many years ago, you did not go for the football or see this moment coming. Am I right?
OSTERMAN: No. No. If - it's fair to say I went to do what I do now, and I don't think I ever would have told the story that we are all kind of in the middle of at this moment. It has been remarkable to watch unfold over the last two years.
INSKEEP: Yeah. And your voice is a little bit raspy. I know you were up all night or almost all night. I just want to mention this game. I got to see the first quarter before I went to bed myself, and it was interesting and impressive. The teams were more closely matched than I anticipated, but IU just seemed to have a little bit of an edge all the way through. How did you experience it in the press box?
OSTERMAN: I think that's fair. I expected a close game. Miami is a very tough team. Miami is a very, very good team along both lines of scrimmage - I think probably the best team there that Indiana's seen this season. I expected Miami to maybe, for lack of a better term, hold Indiana honest for a lot of this game. And I think Indiana, to its credit, won this game because it was the tougher team in those moments. There were a number of players who had blood on their jerseys, blood on their pants, blood on their towels after the game. And I - it felt almost like a bit of a badge of honor because I think they understood how this game needed to be won.
INSKEEP: Oh, my gosh. Fernando Mendoza, the quarterback for IU - I saw blood in his mouth early in the game. Then I wake up to find out, late in the game, he had two fourth-down conversions. What did he do?
OSTERMAN: Yeah. The big one - the one that everyone will be seeing this morning and, I suspect, for a very, very long time - is fourth-and-5 inside the Miami 10-yard line. Indiana looks like it's going to kick a field goal. Curt Cignetti calls timeout and then, to hear it from one of his other players, says, get off the field. We're going for it. Indiana calls a quarterback draw, and Mendoza actually winds up essentially shouldering a Miami defender to the ground on his way to the end zone. He doesn't just convert the fourth down, but he gets to the end zone. There's kind of what I think - what I strongly suspect is going to become an iconic moment in Bloomington - a picture of him stretching out between two defenders and pushing the ball across the goal line for the last touchdown of the night in what ends up being, you know, essentially, I think, as much of a signature moment for this team. This season has - in the end, of course, there have been many.
INSKEEP: OK, so lot of talent here. They benefited a lot from the transfer portal, from a lot of sixth - a couple of sixth-year seniors who had extra time on the field because of the pandemic and so forth. And yet in the end, I think we have an expression there in what you just described - this team's confidence and the coach's confidence. Had they blown that play, this game could be completely different, but they pulled it off.
OSTERMAN: That is what never broke with this team. And, you know, even last season, Indiana wins 11 games but, you felt like, maybe didn't quite have the intangible something extra, that 2% to win a game like they did so dramatically at Penn State, to win the way they did against Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship Game, another very close, physical, hard-fought game. And I think those moments - and forgive me. You're right. My voice is really abandoning me this morning. But I think those moments, in a lot of ways, they felt, very much prepared them for this one and for a national championship.
INSKEEP: Zach Osterman, thanks so much. Get some rest.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GOIN' BACK TO INDIANA")
THE JACKSON 5: (Singing) I'm going back to Indiana. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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