Indiana and Miami supporters may yet need some help before their teams tangle tonight for the national championship — there’s no such thing as a charging call in football, Hoosiers fans; your home stadium is located in Miami Gardens, Canes fans — but at least they know what they want. For everyone else, or at least for everyone who isn’t basing rooting interests on a gambling app, this may be a tough call.
Indiana’s a great story, but it doesn’t take long for a coach and team like this to become the big, bad wolf. Miami used to be exactly that, but that was decades ago. What should you want as a college football fan with no skin in this game? Take this quiz to find out.
1. I have a soft spot in my heart for a college football program that historically:
A. Stinks.B. Cheats.
2. People make a big deal out of this, but I’m fine with a football coach who isn’t very good at:
A. Smiling.B. Counting.
3. Other than throwing touchdown passes and winning games, I want a quarterback who can:
A. Speak with enough unbridled enthusiasm and optimism to make Ted Lasso cringe.B. Hit 150 in his Lamborghini Urus Performante while FaceTiming his famous girlfriend.
4. If Greg Sankey can’t be my answer for “least favorite conference commissioner,” I’ll go with:
A. The one whose league’s tiebreakers are so nonsensical they nearly screwed up the entire College Football Playoff, and who sits and watches one league member destroy the 2026 season of another with a dirty, last-second transaction.B. The one who wants to turn college football into a county-wide, all-ages cornhole tournament.
QB Darian Mensah has informed Duke he plans to enter the portal, sources confirmed to @TheAthletic.
First reported by @mzenitz.
Mensah signed a 2-year contract last year, so unclear what the buyout situation would be.
— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) January 16, 2026
5. Other than football, the greatest sport in the world is:
A. Basketball.B. Spring football.
6. The greatest basket ever made was shot by:
A. Keith Smart.B. Ray Allen.
7. If I needed something investigated, I would go with:
A. A group of super-smart teenagers, well-schooled in “Dungeons and Dragons,” some of them armed with supernatural powers.B. Two rad detectives with awesome hair who wear pastel T-shirts under their sport coats.
8. The more annoying type of sports fans are the ones who:
A. Don’t even pretend to care when their historically esteemed team starts winning again, letting that team play a road game for the national title in its home stadium.B. Jump on the bandwagon when a perennial loser starts winning, then pretend they’ve cared all along.
9. If a coach is going to be a condescending jerk, I would prefer it:
A. Before a game, to reporters.B. After a game, to corporate sponsors.
10. Notre Dame is:
A. A school whose football team is pretty easy to root for while waiting for basketball season.B. The devil.
11. If on a long road trip, I am given the choice of listening exclusively to the selected works of John “Cougar” Mellencamp or 2 Live Crew, I say:
A. “Oh yeah — life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone.”B. “Banned in the USA, I was … banned in the USA.”
12. The biggest college football villains of the 21st century are:
A. Jim Harbaugh and his spying minion, Connor Stalions.B. Terry Porter and his late-arriving flag.
13. This college sports icon was actually a villain, but somehow, my like-minded message board friends and I are the only ones who could see it:
A. Gene Keady.B. Bobby Bowden.
14. If the College Sports Commission wants to clean up college football, it should look into a team that:
A. Throws outrageous amounts of money at quarterbacks until getting so desperate, it oversteps — even in this era — to rip one away from a conference rival and all but guarantee lawsuits.B. Dominates the sport despite a roster of talent that, on paper, should not come close to dominating the sport.
15. When I think of unhinged sideline antics, the kind that could only be tolerated by sycophantic fans of someone whose consistently problematic behavior was glossed over by sports success, I think of:
A. Michael Irvin.B. Bobby Knight.
If you ended up with more “A” answers, you’re for the Hoosiers. More “B,” you’re for the Hurricanes. If you couldn’t take the quiz because you’re avoiding every headline with “Indiana” in it and you just want this game to be over and for everyone to stop talking about it, I know you’re not reading this, but I still want to reassure you: If Indiana football can win a national championship, then by golly, Braden Smith and your Boilermakers can do it this spring.
