MIAMI (AP) — For the second straight year, the biggest game in college football will be decided by a quarterback who wasn’t on the roster the year before.
Heisman-winning Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza arrived in Bloomington in December 2024 following three years at California. Carson Beck transferred to Miami in January 2025 with one year of eligibility remaining after five years at Georgia.
Last January, a similar story was being told. Notre Dame quarterback Riley Leonard had transferred in from Duke, and Ohio State acquired Will Howard after four years at Kansas State. Both signal-callers had proven success elsewhere and adapted to new systems well enough to lead their respective teams to the national championship game.
The occasional one-off success story has now become a broader trend, raising the question of whether transfer quarterbacks are the fastest path to the national championship.
Indiana coach Curt Cignetti says there’s no time to wait for development in this day and age in college football. Winning requires immediate action.
“It would be nice to have a guy for a few years,” Cignetti said. “But when you’ve got a chance to get a guy that can play winning football that’s been through the wars, that’s the way… To me, it’s an easy decision. You’ve got to win every year. Now, there’s no, ‘Oh, in five years we’ll be good.’ That was a long time ago."
Transfer quarterbacks leading teams on championship runs isn't entirely new. Joe Burrow accomplished a somewhat similar feat in 2019, though it was his second season at LSU and he didn’t have prior starting experience at Ohio State. Jake Coker did the same for Alabama in 2015. Stetson Bennett's path was even more unconventional — initially a preferred walk-on at Georgia, he transferred to a JUCO for a year before returning as the Bulldogs' starter and winning back-to-back national championships in 2022 and 2023.
It’s not that Beck didn’t have the patience to wait his turn, it’s that his time in Athens had come and gone.
Beck started for two years after a redshirt freshman year and two seasons as Georgia's primary backup under Bennett. He tore his UCL in the SEC championship game at the tail end of the 2024 season. Gunner Stockton subbed in, performed well, and Georgia didn’t look back.
“My story, it’s a little bit different because I was at Georgia for five years. I stuck it out. I sat for three years. I waited my turn,” Beck said. “Obviously I had the injury, and things don’t pan out the way that I exactly thought they were going to. Then I was blessed with the opportunity to enter the transfer portal, to have another opportunity to play at the University of Miami.”
Beck’s starting experience at Georgia made him especially appealing to Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal, and it gives him ample confidence in the quarterback heading into Monday night.
“I think he’s the most experienced player in the College Football Playoff,” Cristobal said. “Since the day he arrived, and this shows again how savvy and how experienced he is, he couldn’t participate in spring ball, but yet every walkthrough, every meeting, anything post-practice, pre-practice, anything outside of football, he was very much spearheading gatherings, opportunities to galvanize the entire team.”
Cignetti also takes pride in having experienced veterans lead the charge, and the Hoosiers' roster reflects it. Indiana entered the postseason with more combined career starts than any other roster in the College Football Playoff.
Cignetti describes himself as a “tape junkie.” He didn't have to watch much film before realizing Mendoza was the guy to replace 2024 signal-caller Kurtis Rourke.
“That was an easy decision,” the Indiana coach said. “Recruiting is evaluation. If you trust your evaluation and your history of evaluation has been successful, you have a lot of confidence in yourself and your process... I felt extremely strong about Fernando. Extremely. Like I knew we had something.”
To say Mendoza has met Cignetti's expectations would likely be an understatement. He became Indiana's first Heisman winner after leading the Hoosiers to an undefeated season, Big Ten title and the No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff. Cignetti thinks he's only gotten better since winning the prestigious award.
With Mendoza sailing off to the NFL draft, it's rinse and repeat for the Hoosiers and plenty of other programs around the country looking for a similar success story. Cignetti has already found someone who fits the model: Proven starter Josh Hoover, who announced his transfer from TCU to Indiana on Jan. 4.
That is, if Hoover can beat out Mendoza's younger brother, Alberto, in a quarterback competition.
Good quarterbacks don't like to sit back and watch, Cignetti said, while acknowledging this new era of college football isn't always ideal.
“The guys that play quarterback, they don’t like to sit. Like if they know they’ve got the right stuff, they want to play,” he said. “It’s not a perfect world, college football. A lot of issues, obviously. You’ve got to improvise, adjust, be light on your feet if you want to thrive and survive.”
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Miami head coach Mario Cristobal and Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti pose with the trophy after a news conference ahead of the College Football Playoff national championship game between Miami and Indiana, Sunday, Jan. 18, 2026, in Miami. The game will be played on Monday. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
