No, Carson Beck, No! What Are You Doing?! NOOOOOOO!!!!

After almost two weeks of hearing about how Miami would get crushed by Indiana, I was pleasantly surprised by how well the Hurricanes played in Monday night's national championship game. Miami's defense was brutal in the good way throughout, putting Heisman winner Fernando Mendoza under more pressure than he'd faced all year, hitting him ferociously at every opportunity, sometimes right on the line of legality, if not past it. Indiana coach Curt Cignetti complained to ESPN's Holly Rowe about uncalled personal fouls against Miami, and he wasn't wrong, especially with regards to Jakobe Thomas's potential targeting hit on Mendoza in the first quarter; the Miami-raised QB was bleeding from the lip after Thomas's helmet smashed into his face, but, as was the case most of the night, the flags stayed in the referees' pockets.

On the other side of the ball, the Canes offense was brutal in the bad way throughout the first half, but woke up enough in the second to keep Miami within striking distance. (No credit here to the special teams, which essentially gifted Indiana 10 points with a doinked a field goal at the end of the first half and a blocked punt in the third quarter that the Hoosiers recovered in the end zone.) After Mendoza's superhuman fourth-down touchdown run put Indiana up 10 with 9:18 left, Miami's offense unleashed its best drive of the season, a game after it pulled off a similar miracle drive to beat Ole Miss in the semifinal. Malachi Toney, perhaps the most explosive player in all of college football, finally got space to turn on the afterburners, resulting in a 41-yard reception to move Miami into Indiana territory and then taking a toss 22 yards for the touchdown, which would end up being Miami's final points of the season.

Up 24-21, Indiana chewed clock on its next drive and kicked a potentially damning field goal—on its previous drive, the one that ended with Mendoza's run, Indiana had converted two fourth downs, but chose to kick a field goal to go up six rather than go for it on 4th-and-4 on the Miami 17 on this final drive; a conversion would have ended the game—and so the stage was set for Carson Beck and Miami to pull off the improbable comeback and beat the team that looked unbeatable for so much of this season, and for all of the playoffs.

I'm going to fast forward a few plays here: Right after Beck completed a short pass to CJ Daniels for a first down at the Indiana 41, with the clock showing 52 seconds left, I turned to my partner and, perhaps stupidly, said "there's so much time left, and Miami is moving the ball so well. I just need Beck to not do something stupid and force the deep throw."

About 10 seconds later, this happened:

Unfortunately for me, as someone who grew up in Miami as a Hurricanes fan, and also as someone who has a soft spot for Georgia for no real reason, I knew Beck would do this, deep in my bones. The national championship was the final game in his six-year college career that saw Beck lose only six total times. He lost three games with Miami this season, including on Monday night, and three times with Georgia: twice in 2024, and once in 2023. Of those six losses, four of them featured a back-breaking interception on what would end up being Beck's last pass of the game.

• Sept. 28, 2024: Facing Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Beck threw an interception in the end zone with 43 seconds left and Georgia down 41-34.
• Oct. 17, 2025: With Miami down 24-21 to Louisville, Beck threw his fourth interception of the game with 32 seconds left; Miami was already in field goal range for the tie.
• Nov. 1, 2025: In overtime against SMU and Miami on the Mustangs 7-yard line, Beck was picked off at the goal line, and SMU scored a touchdown on its ensuing drive to win 26-20.
• Jan. 19, 2026: You're reading about this one right now.

(It should also be noted that Beck did not play in Georgia's quarterfinal loss in last season's playoffs due to injury; Georgia lost to Notre Dame, 23-10.)

The only losses of Beck's career that didn't end this way were a 28-10 pounding by Ole Miss last year (Beck threw an interception early in the fourth with Georgia down 12) and a 27-24 loss in a thriller to Alabama in the 2023 SEC championship game, a loss that kept Beck and the Bulldogs out of the playoff in his first year as a starter. I can't say that Beck is a particularly bad quarterback; his 37-6 record as a starter does speak for itself, even if his first snaps in the playoff came this season. But the guy can't help forcing bad throws at the worst moments, and it's fitting that he ended Miami's hopes for its first title since 2001 with one last ill-advised chuck.

Let me set the stage for Monday night's title-sealing interception. At the time of the snap, there were still 51 seconds left. Beck had moved Miami down the field with ease the previous drive; having received the ball on their own 9-yard line thanks to a holding penalty, the Hurricanes completed an eight-play, 91-yard, two-minute-and-34-second drive to bring the score to 24-21. After Indiana burned five minutes of clock before kicking a field goal, Miami got the ball on the 25-yard line with 1:42 left to play. A delay of game on the first play—more than anything, that penalty speaks to how well Indiana fans traveled, given that the title game took place in Miami's home stadium—moved it back to the 20, and Beck threw a first-down incompletion. On 2nd and 15, he forced a bad pass to Daniels, but got leveled late by Indiana's Mario Landino, moving the ball 15 yards on a roughing the passer penalty.

Beck then swiftly completed three passes for 24 yards, getting the team to the aforementioned Indiana 41. Even with the clock running after Daniels's grab for a first down, roughly 50 seconds is plenty of time in college football. Indiana's defense, so terrifying up until the fourth quarter, was clearly on the back foot, so all Beck had to do was dink and dunk his way into a reasonable shot at the end zone. That makes the decision to unleash the dragon on first down all the more appalling.

The throw itself was not good. From the angle below, you can see what Beck saw, and I can't blame him too much for feeling that this was his moment. Keelan Marion had gotten a step on cornerback Jamari Sharpe, and there was definitely a gap in coverage near the pylon. (Though safety Amare Ferrell looked to be in good position to make a play on the ball even if the pass had been deeper.) But Beck, on the last throw he'll ever make in a long and ultimately title-less college career, didn't put nearly enough arm on it, allowing Sharpe, who was trailing Marion by a few yards, to make the easiest title-clinching interception you'll see.

Miami lived by the Beck and died by the Beck this year. If Miami had been kept out of the playoff, as a vocal contingent of fans and analysts and Notre Dame homers might have preferred, it would have been, at least in part, because Miami couldn't close out two unranked teams thanks to Beck interceptions. That the Hurricanes' dream run to the title game ended with one more, in the most painful of spots, is fitting. What's that they say about insanity and expecting different results? Beck deserves a lot of credit for getting Miami here—his touchdown run to beat Ole Miss was the team's highlight of the season—but he's also due plenty of blame for not leading the team over the finish line. Beck was fated to be the deciding factor for Miami's hopes at a comeback, and one could argue he was equally fated to have that comeback fall short on the winds of a pass he should have never thrown.