MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — As Bray Lynch witnessed the culmination of one of the greatest sports stories ever told, he couldn’t contain his emotion any longer.
Indiana football — yes, that Indiana football — captured a national championship. The Hoosiers completed a perfect 16-0 season, becoming the first team to do so since the 1890s.
Head coach Curt Cignetti hoisted the College Football Playoff National Championship Trophy to deafening roars from the Indiana contingent at Hard Rock Stadium. Several of this immaculate team’s star players surrounded him while doing so: linebacker Aiden Fisher, wide receivers Elijah Sarratt and Charlie Becker, quarterback Fernando Mendoza, defensive end Mikail Kamara, and cornerback D’Angelo Ponds. Confetti and streamers engulfed the atmosphere around the stage. Queen’s timeless anthem “We Are the Champions” blared out over the speakers, and Indiana fans sang along.
And it was in that moment when everything sunk in for Lynch, Indiana’s starting right guard. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he watched on from the field in front of the stage.
And as Lynch recounted that experience in the locker room after the game, through pungent cigar smoke filling the room and beers flowing, the emotion welled up in his face again.
“I’ve been playing this game of football for a really long time, and I put everything I got into this game. I sacrificed so much that a lot of people don’t know about. Seeing us, ourselves, our team hoist that trophy, it meant everything to me. With this group of guys, it made it so much more special as well,” Lynch told The Daily Hoosier. “I was crying, man. It was so special. I was so proud.”
Meanwhile, defensive tackles coach Pat Kuntz was screaming the Queen lyrics, with his one of his young sons in his arms.
Kuntz is a born and bred Hoosier. He grew up in Indianapolis, played at Notre Dame, coached high school football in his hometown, and then spent two years as an IU graduate assistant in 2016-17. His father bombards his phone during every Indiana football game with frequent reactionary texts and general thoughts.
He said he had not yet gone through Monday’s messages extensively; but he’d seen one noting Cignetti’s “cojones” to call the quarterback draw for Mendoza on a huge fourth-and-4, which led to the Heisman winner’s decisive touchdown.
Kuntz knows the history; he knows how remarkable it is for Indiana football to win a national championship. He knows how much this accomplishment means to the program’s long-suffering fans, including his father. He wore pure, unbridled joy on his face while celebrating on the field, making confetti angels with his son. That was the only reason he didn’t become emotional.
“It actually kept me from tearing up because I had to chase him with earmuffs on, which was challenging,” Kuntz told TDH. “He can’t hear me yell at him, and the security is like, ‘Whose child is this?’ So I had more running on the postgame than during the game, which was nice.”
Defensive end Stephen Daley couldn’t even play in the game after suffering a knee injury while celebrating Indiana’s Big Ten championship in early December. He watched the national title game the same as everyone wearing cream and crimson at Hard Rock Stadium did: as a fan, cheering on his team.
But this wasn’t bittersweet for Daley. Sure, he would’ve loved to play in this contest. But sat in the locker room as much a champion as everyone else who wore the Indiana uniform in 2025-26. And he knows how improbable that was.
“Definitely unlikely. Last year, I was on a (Kent State) team that was 0-12, and a year before that, we were 1-11,” Daley told TDH. “You tell me a couple of years ago, I’d (go from) not winning any FBS games to being undefeated and national champ, I’d call you crazy.”
Indiana football reached this pinnacle, in large part, because of the hyper-focused mentality Cignetti successfully programmed into the entire program.
Players and coaches rarely took much time to reflect on their journeys to this stage. And when they did, it almost always came with a caveat: the job was not yet finished, and they had to continue improving and stacking good days to keep winning against good opponents.
But Monday night saw the Hoosiers reach the pinnacle. The achievement sunk in for everyone in different ways, at different paces. IU had so many winding paths full of ups and downs in winning this championship.
Safeties coach Ola Adams embraced childhood friend and current ACC Network commentator Eddie Royal on the field after the game and spent the joyous moments with friends and family.
Adams, even before working with Cignetti, has had trouble throughout his career with truly savoring wins, no matter how small or large. He recalled his time at SUNY-Courtland as defensive coordinator, when head coach Dan MacNeill told him he needed to learn how to enjoy victories.
The more Adams talked about his past and his road to winning a national championship, the more he began to process what he’d just accomplished. He displayed that emotion on his face as he talked on the field after the game.
“Eddie and I grew up playing Little League ball together. We grew up in the same neighborhood, so we come from Section 8 (low-income housing). We come from nothing,” Adams told TDH. “No fathers in the household. Just growing up with a single moms struggling. And he’s calling the game, and I’m coaching in this game, and we’re able to share this moment together. I mean, this is surreal, you know? That’s been my best friend since I was nine years old. So just to be able to share this moment with him was pretty special.”
Indiana athletic director Scott Dolson erupted in pandemonium on the sideline when cornerback Jamari Sharpe made the championship-clinching interception late in the fourth quarter. He embraced Big Ten commissioner Tony Pettiti’s arms, with IU president Pam Whitten and other staff joining in a group hug and jumping around in excitement.
Indiana AD Scott Dolson and Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti react to the game-winning interception. pic.twitter.com/OeHxtGJy9K
— Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) January 20, 2026
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Dolson has been around IU Athletics for four decades. As a men’s basketball student manager for Bob Knight in the 1980s, he witnessed some of the greatest moments the Hoosiers have ever seen. And as the man who hired Cignetti, he’s had a front-row seat to the former James Madison coach’s incredible turnaround of this once futile football program.
He’s seen a lot over the years in Bloomington. And for Dolson, Indiana football — yes, that Indiana football — winning a national championship sits up there with anything the university’s athletic teams have ever accomplished.
“I’ll tell you what, we’ve had a lot of unbelievable moments. But it’s certainly tied with everything else that I would say,” Dolson said on the field after the game. “I mean, I was on the floor, in 1987 when Keith Smart hit his shot. And so, I mean, this is unbelievable.”
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