Mike Wolanin | The Republic Indiana Hoosiers football fans Bob Shearin, in white left, and Brian Campbell, in white right, react to the Hoosiers defeating the Miami Hurricanes in the College Football Playoff National Championship game at a watch party hosted by the Indiana University Alumni Association South Central Region at Yes Cinema in Columbus, Ind., Monday, Jan. 19, 2026. The Hoosiers defeated the Hurricanes 27-21 to win their first ever national championship.
Miami may have been playing the College Football Playoff Championship on its home field Monday night, but Hurricanes fans were outnumbered by crimson-clad Indiana fans in Hard Rock Stadium.
Several Columbus residents traveled to Miami to cheer on the Hoosiers as they claimed the school’s first national title. Among them was retired Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. teacher Mary Kendrick.
“It was beyond belief,” Kendrick said. “It was incredible. It was amazing. It was a nail-biter. My guess was, at least 55 percent red. Then of course at the end of the game, all the Hurricanes fans left, and it was all IU. Everybody in red stayed.”
Kendrick’s husband Tom played quarterback for IU from 1956-58. While Mary and their daughter and grandson were able to attend the game, Tom watched from home.
“Like every other Hoosier fan, I am so pleased,” Tom Kendrick said. “It’s like being in a sports world nirvana with this perfect season, but still suffering from the suspense of Miami’s final drive, wondering if they were going to do the same thing they did against Ole Miss.”
Miami, which had scored a late touchdown to beat Mississippi in the semifinals, got the ball back trailing by six points with less than two minutes remaining, the Indiana clinched the game with an interception at its own 6-yard line in the final minute.
“There’s never been anything quite like this,” Mary Kendrick said. “It was beyond any spectacle we’re ever seen. The only thing better would be if Tom had been here.”
Longtime fitness instructor Shayla Holtkamp and her son Bobby Crider made the trip to Miami. Holtkamp estimated the crowd as more than two-thirds IU fans.
“It was electrifying,” Holtkamp said. “It was at least 70 percent, and they made noise. (Miami fans) made their noise, but it was nothing like IU. It just reverberated through that stadium.
“The whole experience with IU fans, everywhere you go, not just at the game, but when you were walking,” she added. “I stayed in South Beach and this lady said, ‘Go Hoosiers.’ I said, ‘Where are you from?’ and she said Napa Valley. Everybody was for the Hoosiers.”
Holtkamp earned undergraduate degrees from both Ohio State and IU and a masters from IU. She taught at IU’s School of Public Health for 15 years before retiring when COVID hit and her classes moved online.
Crider is a Columbus North and IU grad. His half-brother, Columbus East graduate Harry Crider, played for the Hoosiers from 2017-20.
“He bought tickets after the Big Ten championship game, and we thought it could be Ohio State vs. IU again,” Holtkamp said. “I thought it would be perfect.”
North graduate Jake Reed played for IU from 2011-15. Now living in Chicago, he attended the Big Ten Championship game in December in Indianapolis, but watched Monday’s game from his Chicago home.
“It was amazing,” Reed said. “They had some big plays. Miami obviously was really good. (Quarterback) Fernando (Mendoza) was hit quite a bit, but he proved how tough he was. It was a magical season. Our defense has been really good and has been really good all year. It was a great story. Fernando’s parents are a pretty awesome story, too.”
Mendoza grew up in Miami about a mile from the University of Miami campus. His father Fernando Mendoza IV played with current Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal at Miami, and his mother is afflicted with multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair. They were shown on the TV broadcast multiple times, including after their son ran for the touchdown in the fourth quarter that put Indiana ahead by two scores.
“It was not a dull game by any means,” Holtkamp said. “I just think about these young men that came together and won the national championship. They’re good guys, they have a brotherhood and they have faith. You could tell that.”
The Hoosiers, who achieved a big turnaround after coach Curt Cignetti took over two years ago, became the first team in the playoff era to record a 16-0 season.
“The whole thing as a season is hard to believe,” Tom Kendrick said. “My wife wore my old varsity “I” sweater, which creates a lot of conversation. That was a little part of me that was at the game. I’m really pleased for all former players and my old teammates, but am really sorry that some of them had passed.”
Fans also showed up to support their Hoosiers at at a watch party hosted by the Indiana University Alumni Association South Central Region at YES Cinema Monday night.
At least one Purdue fan even was happy for the Hoosiers. Columbus mayor Mary Ferdon and her husband and two children all are Purdue graduates.
“I was a Hoosier at heart last night and was thrilled to see Indiana walk away with the national championship,” Ferdon said.
But Ferdon wasn’t ready to declare IU as the preeminent university in Indiana.
“Absolutely not,” she said. “We still have the basketball championship to come, and we also have more astronauts than any other university.”
