Indiana’s National Championship Game Heroes Include Sons of Two Former Buckeyes, Nephew of Key Figure in Miami’s 2003 Loss to Ohio State

By Dan Hope on January 20, 2026 at 12:03 pm
Isaiah Jones
James Lang – Imagn Images
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Several players with Ohio State ties played key roles in Indiana’s national championship game win over Miami on Monday night.

Two of the biggest plays in Indiana’s 27-21 victory were made by players whose fathers once wore the scarlet and gray.

Isaiah Jones, who recovered a punt block for a touchdown in the Hoosiers’ national championship win over the Hurricanes, is the son of former Ohio State tight end DJ Jones, who played for the Buckeyes from 1992-96.

Jones, a linebacker who also made two tackles and a pass breakup in Indiana’s win, grew up just a half-hour away from Columbus in London, Ohio. A three-star linebacker in the 2022 recruiting class, Jones grew up rooting for the Buckeyes but signed with the Hoosiers when he didn‘t receive an offer from Ohio State.

“You grow up in their backyard, you grow up watching them, obviously it’s everyone’s dream to play for their favorite school, and sometimes that doesn’t work out,” Jones said of Ohio State on a December episode of Big Ten Network’s The Journey. “Then it’s, ‘I want to go beat them.’”

Another son of a former Buckeye made a crucial play in the fourth quarter. Charlie Becker, who had four total catches for 65 yards in the national championship game, caught a back-shoulder fade from Fernando Mendoza for a 19-yard gain to convert a 4th-and-5, setting up Mendoza’s fourth-down touchdown run four plays later.

Becker’s father, Dave, was a linebacker at Ohio State for one season in 1995. But the younger Becker, who grew up in Nashville, showed no love for his father’s alma mater after Indiana’s Big Ten Championship Game win over Ohio State, greeting the crowd with an “O-H F-U” celebration during the postgame ceremony.

Indiana’s game-sealing interception, meanwhile, was made by the nephew of a player who’s famous to Ohio State fans for another reason. Indiana cornerback Jamari Sharpe, who secured the Hoosiers’ national championship by picking off Miami quarterback Carson Beck with less than a minute to play, is the nephew of former Miami cornerback Glenn Sharpe, who committed the infamous fourth-down pass interference penalty in the first overtime of Ohio State’s eventual double-overtime win over the Hurricanes in the 2003 BCS National Championship Game.

An actual former Buckeye also contributed to Indiana’s national championship win. Former Ohio State offensive tackle Zen Michalski, who played 16 snaps off the bench as a sixth offensive lineman, won a second straight national championship to cap off his college football career.

Indiana’s starting offensive line was led by left tackle Carter Smith, a native of Powell, Ohio – just north of Columbus – who said after the Big Ten championship game that beating Ohio State, who didn’t offer him as a three-star prospect out of Olentangy Liberty, “meant the world“ to him.

“There's only one thing I've ever wanted, and it was to come here and beat Ohio State, man to man,” Smith said after the Big Ten Championship Game.

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Fernando Mendoza diving for a touchdown vs. Miami in the national championship game
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