The No. 1 Indiana Hoosiers completed the unthinkable after beating No. 10 Miami, 27-21, in the 2025 College Football Playoff national championship game Monday night. The Hoosiers went from having the most losses — before Northwestern surpassed them this season — in FBS history to completing the first 16-0 season in the modern college football era to win the program’s first national title.
It was truly improbable, but here are some numbers as compiled by FOX Sports Research to help explain Indiana’s turnaround.
Indiana’s National Championship By The Numbers:
1. Indiana is the only FBS team to end the 2025 season with an undefeated record.
2. Indiana is just the second team in major college football history to go 16-0, the other being Yale in the year 1894 — who did so by playing multiple games per week. Without that phenomenon, a 16-0 record was impossible before the College Football Playoff expanded to 12 teams last season. While it took just two years for a team to complete that feat, Indiana’s 16-0 mark could be hard to meet.
3. Indiana becomes the third straight Big Ten team to win the national championship, the first time that’s happened since 1940-42. Prior to the Hoosiers, Ohio State took down Notre Dame to win the inaugural 12-team playoff, and Michigan beat Washington to win the 2023 CFP title.
5. Indiana becomes the fifth team since the FBS/FCS split in 1978 to record five wins against AP top-10 opponents (2019 LSU, 2024 Ohio State, 2015 Alabama, 1987 Miami). The Hoosiers defeated Oregon in the regular season and CFP semifinals. Both times the Ducks were ranked fifth in the nation. They beat No. 2 Ohio State to win the Big Ten title. They took down No. 9 Alabama in the first round of the CFP, and beat No. 10 Miami to win it all.
27. Head coach Curt Cignetti is 27-2 in his first two seasons with Indiana, the best winning percentage of any head coach in that span. His only losses came to Ohio State and Notre Dame last season, both of which dueled in the 2024 CFP national championship game (with the Buckeyes ultimately winning).
41. Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza threw 41 touchdowns, finishing as the only player in FBS this season to eclipse 40 passing touchdowns. He didn’t, however, throw a touchdown in the CFP title game, but he scrambled for a 14-yard touchdown that proved the difference in the Hoosiers’ victory.
715. Indiana entered this season as the most losing program in college football history (715 losses), with its last Big Ten title coming in 1967. Northwestern took the crown when it lost at No. 19 USC to record the 716th defeat in program history. The Wildcats ended the year with 718 total losses. Cignetti is the first head coach to lead a team to a national title within two seasons since Gene Chizik in 2010 (Year 2 at Auburn).
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