The College Football Playoff national championship is set, and it's a matchup no one could've seen coming — right down to the fact that one team is playing in its home stadium.
Home-field advantage or not, the No. 10 Miami Hurricanes are two-score underdogs in South Florida's Hard Rock Stadium against the No. 1 Indiana Hoosiers. Curt Cignetti's IU crew has looked like a runaway freight train for most of the season.
Before Monday night's kickoff, check out our college football national championship preview for Miami vs. Indiana on Jan. 19, 2026.
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College football national championship preview
Certain fan bases, including those of Notre Dame and BYU, would argue that Miami shouldn't be here.
The Hurricanes went 10-2 in the regular season, including 6-2 in the ACC, which put them in a five-way tie for second in the conference. They were one of the odd teams out, leaving their postseason fate in the hands of the CFP selection committee.
Despite Miami sitting idly by during championship weekend, the program leapfrogged Notre Dame (idle) and BYU (lost in the Big 12 championship) to get into the playoff as the lone ACC representative.
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It was ... an interesting move. But after three CFP wins, including a true road win at Texas A&M and a two-score victory over the defending national champions, who can really complain now?
There was no such controversy surrounding Indiana, the Big Ten champ that has been bulldozing its competition.
The Hoosiers are unbeaten, boasting an average victory margin of 31.5 points.
As of two years ago, Indiana had never accrued 10+ wins in 125 years of college football. Now the Hoosiers are on the doorstep of being the first FBS school to win 16 games in a season. What a world.
College football betting notes: How the Hurricanes got here
Record: 13-2 (6-2 ACC)
Key wins: vs. Notre Dame, at Florida State, at Texas A&M (CFP), vs. Ohio State (CFP), vs. Ole Miss (CFP)
Miami's exact path to the playoff had some human intervention, but the team has proven it was built for the moment.
Transfer quarterback Carson Beck, who was a backup for two national titles at Georgia, led the ACC in completion rate this year and has a 14:2 TD-to-INT ratio over his past six games.
Defensively, the Hurricanes have a pair of edge rushers who are NFL-bound in the spring. The unit ranks fifth in NCAA Division I in scoring (14.0 PPG), which is due in part to the team's ability to pin its ears back in passing situations.
Miami ranks No. 7 in opponent third-down success rate (34.7%), per Game On Paper.
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CFP preview: How the Hoosiers got here
Record: 15-0 (9-0 Big Ten)
Key wins: vs. Illinois, at Iowa, vs. Ohio State, vs. Alabama (CFP), vs. Oregon (CFP)
I'm not going to reach to criticize this Indiana team, which ranks No. 2 in scoring on both sides of the ball.
In the preseason, Indiana had longer championship odds than Ohio State, Oregon and Alabama. But the Hoosiers went a combined 4-0 with a +82 point differential against those schools.
To know how Indiana got here, you have to go back to the James Madison Dukes' 11-1 season in 2023. That team was coached by Cignetti, and he brought a ton of his best players to Bloomington.
In his debut season at Indiana, Cignetti led the team to an 11-2 record and a CFP appearance.
He retained several JMU transfers and brought in other players from the portal — players who suddenly saw Indiana as much more than a has-been basketball school.
College football national championship preview: Key players
Fernando Mendoza (QB, Indiana): Speaking of IU transfers, the program hit the jackpot with Mendoza. The Heisman trophy winner is almost a lock to go No. 1 overall in this year's NFL draft.
Though his interviews often sound AI-generated, Mendoza's robotic tendencies as a quarterback are a plus. He's absurdly efficient, pacing D-I passers in yards per attempt (9.5), TDs (41) and passer rating.
Elijah Sarratt (WR, Indiana): Sarratt's best season from a yardage standpoint came at Cignetti's JMU in 2023, but he's carried the clutch gene over to Indiana.
The wideout has the most receiving TDs in the country (15), converting nearly a quarter of his receptions into scores. He's a nightmare to stop in the red zone.
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Malachi Toney (WR, Miami): Pound for pound, no one in college football is as exciting as the 5-foot-11, 185-pound Toney. And he's only a freshman.
Toney had five-plus catches in each of his final six games, along with 15 total rush attempts in that span. Miami wants to get the ball in the hands of its speedy playmaker, and Indiana will have to be on its toes.
Rueben Bain Jr. (EDGE, Miami): Bain is likely on his way to being a top-10 NFL draftee in April thanks to the chaos he causes on the defensive line.
The ACC Defensive Player of the Year was quiet in the CFP semis, but he did a ton of damage over three games vs. ranked opponents before that: 13 tackles (nine solo) and 5.5 sacks. As an outside rusher, it only takes one or two key plays to make a huge difference.
Hurricanes vs. Hoosiers betting trends
- Both Miami and Indiana are 10-5-0 ATS this season.
- Indiana's +13.6 average ATS point differential leads D-I.
- Miami is 3-0 SU as an underdog.
- Overs are 9-6 on the season for Indiana. The CFP title game has a projected total of 47.5 points, and the Hoosiers have cleared that in seven of their past 10 matchups.
- Toney has a touchdown in four of his past five games.
- Sarratt has a touchdown in nine straight full games (i.e., excluding the Nov. 1 game at Maryland when he got hurt).
- Mendoza has been ultra-efficient without huge yardage volume. Over his past eight games, he has a 20:4 TD-to-INT ratio and a 72.5% completion rate ... but he's averaging just 199.3 yards in that span.
