No, Carson Beck, No! What Are You Doing?! NOOOOOOO!!!!

After almost two weeks of hearing about how Miami would get crushed by Indiana, I was pleasantly surprised by how well the Hurricanes played in Monday night's national championship game. Miami's defense was brutal in the good way throughout, putting Heisman winner Fernando Mendoza under more pressure than he'd faced all year, hitting him ferociously at every opportunity, sometimes right on the line of legality, if not past it. Indiana coach Curt Cignetti complained to ESPN's Holly Rowe about uncalled personal fouls against Miami, and he wasn't wrong, especially with regards to Jakobe Thomas's potential targeting hit on Mendoza in the first quarter; the Miami-raised QB was bleeding from the lip after Thomas's helmet smashed into his face, but, as was the case most of the night, the flags stayed in the referees' pockets.

On the other side of the ball, the Canes offense was brutal in the bad way throughout the first half, but woke up enough in the second to keep Miami within striking distance. (No credit here to the special teams, which essentially gifted Indiana 10 points with a doinked a field goal at the end of the first half and a blocked punt in the third quarter that the Hoosiers recovered in the end zone.) After Mendoza's superhuman fourth-down touchdown run put Indiana up 10 with 9:18 left, Miami's offense unleashed its best drive of the season, a game after it pulled off a similar miracle drive to beat Ole Miss in the semifinal. Malachi Toney, perhaps the most explosive player in all of college football, finally got space to turn on the afterburners, resulting in a 41-yard reception to move Miami into Indiana territory and then taking a toss 22 yards for the touchdown, which would end up being Miami's final points of the season.

Up 24-21, Indiana chewed clock on its next drive and kicked a potentially damning field goal—on its previous drive, the one that ended with Mendoza's run, Indiana had converted two fourth downs, but chose to kick a field goal to go up six rather than go for it on 4th-and-4 on the Miami 17 on this final drive; a conversion would have ended the game—and so the stage was set for Carson Beck and Miami to pull off the improbable comeback and beat the team that looked unbeatable for so much of this season, and for all of the playoffs.