MIAMI — Tuesday's classes at Christopher Columbus High School in Miami have been canceled.
There wouldn't be much learning going on that day. No matter what happens Monday night in the College Football Playoff title game between Indiana and Miami — a game that will be played in South Florida — Columbus will be busily celebrating the sight of alums hoisting the national championship trophy.
Thing is, will it be Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza, the Heisman Trophy winner? Or will it be Miami coach Mario Cristobal?
''The kids here, that's all they're talking about this week,'' said Herb Baker, the school's longtime athletic trainer known by many in South Florida simply as Brother Herb.
Columbus, a Catholic all-boys school that sits about 5 miles from the University of Miami campus and about 25 miles from Hard Rock Stadium — where the game will be played — is a house divided right now. There are Miami fans. There are Mendoza fans. The optimist would say the school can't lose. The pessimist would say the school can't win.
''It's a no-lose situation,'' said Columbus football coach Dave Dunn — who immediately started wondering when the CFP bracket came out if the stars would align for an Indiana-Miami final. ''You're really kind of celebrating the success of all of our alums. And to do it on this type of stage is just amazing.''
The list of Columbus grads in this game is seven-deep. Indiana has Mendoza at quarterback and his brother, Alberto Mendoza, as the backup. Miami has Cristobal, associate head coach Alex Mirabal, defensive back Bryce Fitzgerald, offensive lineman Ryan Rodriguez and backup quarterback Vinny Gonzalez.
The kids, the families, they all know each other. Fernando Mendoza, then at Cal, played against Miami last year in what became a wild Hurricanes comeback win. Alberto Mendoza quarterbacked Columbus to a state title in 2023; the final TD pass he threw in that game was to Fitzgerald. Fernando and Alberto Mendoza's father, also named Fernando, was a teammate of Cristobal and Mirabal at Columbus in the late 1980s. If all that wasn't enough, the Mendoza family home is less than a mile from the Miami campus in Coral Gables — and Elsa Mendoza, the mother of the Indiana quarterbacks, played tennis for the Hurricanes in her college years.
