The epitome of Indiana's remarkable climb, Elijah Sarratt said it won't mean much 'if you don't finish it with a championship.'

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – Curt Cignetti is just about over the “warm milk and cookies” narrative or even the idea that his Indiana football team is somehow a novelty.

What the Hoosiers are, as we cap the 2025 college football season on Monday night at Hard Rock Stadium, are a decided favorite against Miami in the College Football Playoff national championship game.

And perhaps no player on Indiana’s roster better encapsulates Indiana’s climb to the crest of college football’s mountaintop than senior receiver Elijah Sarratt.

There’s a reason they call him “Waffle House,” because he’s always open and he also always believed that there was more out there for him, even after begging college programs to give him a look coming out of high school.

“I could show you hundreds of emails and Twitter DMs of me emailing coaches, emailing junior colleges and getting no response,” Sarratt said. “I joke around with the JMU coaches now that I’m emailing them, and they’re not responding. … It happens. I’m glad my story is the way it is, and I hope it motivates younger kids to keep going, no matter if you have one scholarship, 20 scholarships or whatever.

“Keep on going. All you need to do is put in the work every single day, and you’ll have a chance.”

Sarratt, a two-time All-Big Ten selection for the Hoosiers, kept on going, kept on working and kept on believing when it seemed like nobody else believed in him. It’s been the same mantra for this entire Indiana team, a hodgepodge of hand-picked transfers, two- and three-star holdovers before Cignetti arrived and a Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback, Fernando Mendoza, who transferred in this season from Cal and immediately helped take an 11-2 Indiana team from a year ago to 15-0 this year and now with a chance to win the Hoosiers’ first national championship in school history.

The chemistry on and off the field between Sarratt and Mendoza has been a big part of Indiana’s success and an offense that leads all Power 4 schools with an average of 42.6 points per game. Mendoza has thrown 41 touchdown passes this season, 15 of them to Sarratt, who leads all players nationally in touchdown catches.

“You always know right where he’s going to be, and even when I don’t put the ball where it’s supposed to be, Elijah goes and gets it,” Mendoza said. “Quarterbacks love throwing to somebody like that, the trust in each other, and what Elijah means to this team is much deeper than what he’s done for offense.”

All offseason, Sarratt preached the importance of one extra rep in workouts, lifting weights, anything they did as a team to prepare for the season. He called them “championship” reps.

A year ago, Sarratt and Indiana quarterback Kurtis Rourke formed one of the Big Ten’s best pass-catch combos after Rourke transferred from Ohio University. And then last January, along comes Mendoza after passing for 3,004 yards and 16 touchdowns at Cal.

“Really started the first day I met him on his visit,” Sarratt said of his rapport with Mendoza. “They asked me to come up to dinner with him. We chopped it up at dinner. It was easy talking to him. We just clicked. As good as he is on the field, he’s that good off the field too as a regular human being. We have a lot of great conversations outside of football that translates onto the field and builds that trust and chemistry as a friend and not just as a teammate.”

Sarratt was among the 13 James Madison transfers that came with Cignetti to Indiana for the 2024 season. But just to get to JMU was a struggle for Sarratt, who started his high school career at Colonial Forge in Stafford, Virginia and then transferred to St. Frances Academy, a private Catholic school in Baltimore, to hopefully gain a little more exposure.

It didn’t help that his high school years coincided with the COVID pandemic, and Sarratt said he also probably waited too long to commit. At one point, he said he held more than 10 offers from smaller schools, and then that number gradually dwindled to two. He was nowhere on the radar of the recruiting services and didn’t have any stars.

“All the spots filled up. I wanted to go to Liberty and called and texted the head coach, but no response,” Sarratt said. “The next day, I saw a receiver ended up committing there. I was like, ‘My spot is gone.’”

But not his quest to play college football.

Late in the recruiting process, St. Francis University, a school in Loretto, Pennsylvania with fewer than 2,000 undergraduates, came calling. Sarratt wasn’t picky. He had his chance. He played one season and garnered FCS Freshman All-America honors, caught a touchdown pass in eight straight games and landed in the transfer portal. Indiana offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan, then JMU’s offensive coordinator, was a teammate and roommate at Pittsburgh with Marco Pecora, St. Francis’ offensive coordinator.

“He gave us a glowing recommendation, and everything that he told us was spot on and became true,” Shanahan said. “But, yeah, I feel like we do have quite a few of those guys that were under-recruited, had to take the path less traveled to get to this point, and it’s definitely a little bit of a chip-on-their shoulder mindset. But, now, they also have the confidence that they belong, and not only that they belong, but they are some of the best at what they do across the country.”

The 6-2, 213-pound Sarratt flourished at Indiana, even though he was contemplating going south after playing a year at JMU, where his brother, Josh, had also played for Cignetti. Sarratt was supposed to visit South Carolina after getting back into the portal. But on his visit to Indiana, when he told Cignetti he might be making that visit to see the Gamecocks, Cignetti told him bluntly that he didn’t think it was a good idea.

Now — 23 touchdown catches later, with a Big Ten championship in his pocket, not to mention a 26-2 record and chance to win a natty — Sarratt would agree that Cignetti’s sales pitch was right on.

The only thing that slowed down Sarratt this season was a hamstring injury he suffered against Maryland. It ended his streak of 46 straight games that he had caught a pass, the longest active streak among FBS players. Sarratt was forced to miss three games, but returned in time to play against Purdue in the regular-season finale.

In every game since, he’s caught at least one touchdown pass, including four TDs in Indiana’s three playoff games.

And as he should, Sarratt has cashed in nicely on the NIL side during his two years at Indiana, although his love of football runs a lot deeper than money. Yes, even in this age of players landing multi-million dollar deals.

While at JMU, Sarratt said the only thing he was paid was the NCAA’s regular monthly stipend of $250.

“Zero dollars,” Sarratt repeated when asked what he got before arriving at Indiana.

But, hey, he’s not complaining. In fact, he said that’s what has made this team so successful, that even with all the publicity, money and new-found fame, nobody has stopped to look back at the climb or even how historic this season has been for the Hoosiers.

“It really doesn’t mean too much if you don’t finish it with a championship,” Sarratt said.