Despite the Miami Hurricanes’ heroic effort against Indiana, D’Angelo

Miami Gardens — Carson Beck could extend both hands and place them on either side of his helmet.

The journey that brought the quarterback to South Florida brought him together with Mario Cristobal of the Miami Hurricanes. It ended with an inexplicable, errant pass that didn’t come close to its intended target and fell into the hands of Indiana’s Jamari Sharpe.

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Miami Hurricane is one of the biggest stories not just in college football but in all sports, and it did something no other team could do in these playoffs. Let’s follow the Indiana Hoosiers closely.

However, a 27-21 loss in the College Football Championship game at home will still have a significant impact.

And sting worse.

Miami’s heroics in a season where it overcame two middling losses and fell one game short in the playoffs are truly remarkable.

“For it to end like this, it’s tough; it’s really tough,” Beck said. “For a group that has faced a lot of adversity all season long, it’s truly challenging.” To face adversity early (in the championship game) and fight our way back to finally have a chance to win the game says a lot about this team and us.”

Beck would take the heat for that last pass, a heave that had a first down from the Indiana 41-yard line and was intercepted six yards from the goal line with 44 seconds to play.

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Miami never led and fell behind by 10 points three times.

the last two in the second half were backbreaking, frustrating plays.

But Isaiah Jones’ recovery of Mikail Kamara’s blocked punt in the end zone made the score 17-7, and Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza’s 12-yard touchdown run on fourth down, in which he pinballed Hurricanes defenders and flew into the end zone, didn’t make it 24-14.

And there were the Hurricanes, 75 yards from a national championship with 102 seconds left.

Red and white confetti falls as Indiana fans celebrate

And about a minute later, Hard Rock Stadium turned south into Memorial Stadium, where the red-clad Hoosiers—who outnumbered the team’s home stadium fans—soaked up red and white confetti and partied like a John Mellencamp concert.

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While Indiana (16-0) became the first team to win 16 games in a college football season, Miami (13-3) became the first Hurricanes team to win 13 games in a season.

And though those numbers are skewed by the extended playoffs, it still says something about what the Hurricanes—a proud program with five national championships—achieved after more than two decades of irrelevance.

Cristobal isn’t one to pay attention to the “you’re back” chatter that began during Miami’s greatest season in the early 2000s.

Miami’s coach has firsthand knowledge of the program’s excitement in the 1980s and early 1990s, when it won four titles in an eight-year span. When this programme was as good as college football gets.

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Those days are gone. Not to be copied.

And Cristobal realises that the landscape is so different now. The blueprint for building a program in the 2020s didn’t exist four decades or even two decades ago.

Not even close.

Now, it takes money first and foremost. And more money means more talent. And Cristobal has been able to leverage his recruiting prowess and a collective investment of more than $20 million into the 2025 roster to build a team with enough talent to overcome any adversity or coaching flaws.

Miami’s current challenge is to avoid becoming a one-time phenomenon. 2023 won’t be like Florida State, which followed its 13-1 season with a stunning nosedive that resulted in two losing seasons.

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So, you’re back?

It takes more than one magical run to win a national title. With free agency open every year, consistency may be more fleeting now than ever.

College football is truly a fluid business.

“I believe the most common misunderstanding in sports is the belief that they are almost there and will return next year,” Cristobal stated. “It’s a bunch of bulls. You have to improve and move forward from a roster standpoint, a rules standpoint, discipline, everything, and these guys set the standard to help us get there.”

We’ll soon find out if it was a fluke or if Yu is back.