Curt Cignetti’s bold decision to recall his field goal team and go for it on fourth-and-four set up Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza’s electrifying 12-yard touchdown scramble to lead Indiana to a 27-21 win over Miami and the school’s first national championship.
Offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan called the quarterback draw, giving Mendoza the option to audible to a pass if he saw man-to-man coverage, but Mendoza’s brilliant run, bouncing off tacklers and stretching into the end zone, extended the Hoosiers lead to 24-14, and after a Miami touchdown and an Indiana field goal, Indiana’s Jamari Sharpe picked off Carson Beck’s desperation last pass with 44 seconds left to seal the game.
As he celebrated the win, Cignetti raised two fingers to the sky in a salute to his late father, IUP Hall of Fame coach Frank Cignetti.
Cignetti says the win for the Hoosiers is a tribute to hard work, as much as it is to athletic talent.
Cignetti, whose first head coaching job was at IUP, said he has always wanted to be a football coach, but even for him, envisioning himself being a national champion was a stretch.
With Cignetti winning a national title, football’s two biggest prizes in the last twelve months have gone to coaches who once patrolled the sidelines at George P. Miller Stadium. Super Bowl winning coach Nick Sirianni of the Eagles was a receivers coach at IUP from 2006 to 2008 and Curt Cignetti’s long family history at IUP was capped by his six-year tenure as IUP’s head coach from 2011 to 2016.
