HOUSTON – IUPUI graduate students Mitch Friesenborg and Andrew Thomison will cover the College Football Playoff National Championship for the Sports Capital Journalism Center website Monday night.

When Michigan and Washington, the top two teams in the nation, meet at NRG Stadium, Friesenborg and Thomison will extend an IUPUI journalism tradition that began more than a decade ago when IUPUI students covered the 2013 Bowl Championship Series title game. The opportunities expanded when the four-team College Football Playoff format began at the end of the 2014 season.

In the 10 seasons of the four-team playoff, two dozen IUPUI students have traveled to a semifinal or championship game.

Last fall, M.A. student Hanna Barton became the latest IUPUI student invited to take part in the College Football Playoff Mock Selection Exercise. The meeting selects a four-team field from a previous season in the same hotel suite that houses the selection committee.

IUPUI students have also covered events including the NCAA Men’s Final Four, NCAA Women’s Final Four, FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup, Pan American Games and the Olympic Games.

Thomison, who earned an undergraduate degree in journalism on the Indianapolis campus in 2021, has covered the Indianapolis Colts for the website Stampede Blue.com. He covered the National Football League Scouting Combine and the Big Ten Football Championship Game for the Sports Capital Journalism Program website.

Friesenborg, from Forest City, Iowa, earned a B.A. at Harding University in Searcy, Ark. He covered Harding sports as a sports anchor, reporter, and camera operator. Friesenborg served six years in the Army National Guard. He covered the Big Ten Championship Football Game last month.

The Sports Capital Journalism Program is part of the Department of Journalism and Public Relations within the School of Liberal Arts. The M.A. in Sports Journalism became the first of its kind in the U.S. when it was launched on the IUPUI campus in 2009. The Associated Press Sports Editors Red Smith Hall of Fame is located on the IUPUI campus, and the organization’s Summer Conference was held there in 2022.

“We continue to be so grateful to the College Football Playoff staff for all the opportunities that have extended from Year One until Year 10,” said Malcolm Moran, director of the Sports Capital Journalism Program and a board member of the Football Writers Association of America. “All of the logistical challenges and unpredictable developments that are part of covering a championship game become the ideal supplement to what we emphasize in the classroom. The required navigational skills have become a point of emphasis when our students interview for internships and jobs.”