Fernando Mendoza proving Indiana football has ‘the best quarterback in college football’

BLOOMINGTON — As Indiana’s historic season has unfolded across the last several weeks, a minor urban legend has taken hold here in Bloomington.

It’s been said that, on more than one occasion, team staffers checking in on the football offices late into the evening have found one light on, and one man working under its glare.

There, they discover Fernando Mendoza — a quarterback Curt Cignetti repeatedly describes as among the hardest-working he’s ever coached — combing through film and studying keys, long after teammates and even coaches have gone home.

It turns out this is the product of a scheduling quirk. Mendoza, who graduated from Cal-Berkeley with a business degree in just three years, maintains a strict and detailed daily schedule. One that often includes evening film study and solo preparation.

Most of the time, Mendoza told IndyStar, his day concludes somewhere between 9 and 9:30 p.m., when he returns to the off-campus apartment he shares with his brother and backup, Alberto.

But on Thursdays, Mendoza makes a point to take his offensive line out to dinner. Never one to abbreviate that routine, Mendoza pushes those end-of-day sessions a little later in the evening.

Usually, his Thursdays wrap sometime between 10 and 11 p.m. He’ll lengthen his day before he shortens his process.

As Mendoza’s first — and perhaps only — season in Bloomington matures, more and more teammates, coaches and fans are coming to appreciate the meticulousness with which he approaches his job, one he is doing just about as well as any player in the country right now.

After another superlative performance Saturday afternoon, one interrupted by lightning but never Michigan State, it’s fair now to start believing the answer to the question, “Can Fernando Mendoza win the Heisman Trophy?” is, in fact, yes.

“Don’t ever tell him I said this, because he hates hearing stuff like this,” wide receiver Omar Cooper Jr. said. “I feel like we’ve got the best quarterback in college football.”

IU students certainly made up their minds Saturday evening when, near the conclusion of a rain-soaked 38-13 homecoming victory over Michigan State, they began “HeisMendoza.”

Or maybe it’s “Heisman-doza.” We have time to work out the spelling, but the conversation needs having. Because Mendoza, who on Saturday helped Indiana retain the Old Brass Spittoon for the first time since 1969, certainly looks the part.

The redshirt junior widely considered among the best NFL prospects at his position in this draft class before the season began has done little to temper those expectations across the Hoosiers’ 7-0 (4-0 in Big Ten play) start.

He was ruthless against Illinois. He delivered game-winning moments in hard-fought victories at Iowa and at Oregon. And on Saturday, he unpacked Michigan State’s defense to the tune of 24 of 28, for 332 yards and four touchdowns.

Mendoza was not sacked once. He mixed in a handful of important quarterback runs, including one that converted a key third down. And he saved his best for his last, Mendoza’s final touchdown pass a 27-yarder dropped into a bucket, right on Elijah Sarratt’s facemask.

“This is the sharpest we’ve seen him, up to this point, in a game,” Cignetti said. “He continues to improve. He continues to prepare like nobody I’ve ever been around, and he’s getting better and better.”

Indiana’s coach has not always praised so publicly his latest transfer quarterback success.

A former quarterback himself, and a coach with considerable success developing players at that position, Cignetti keeps a high standard for his signal callers. Even as he often suggests quarterbacks get both too much praise and too much blame, that did not stop him demanding excellence of Kurtis Rourke, in 2024, and it has not stopped him setting the bar just as high (if not higher) for Mendoza, in 2025.

Increasingly, the Miami native is clearing it.

While it was not the toughest test he’s seen or will see in an Indiana uniform, Saturday felt in some ways like Mendoza’s most complete game thus far as a Hoosier.

The accuracy, the arm talent and the leadership qualities have always shined through, virtually since the day he set foot on campus in winter. The Spartans, though, felt the full force of a quarterback who looks more comfortable now than he has at any point so far this season.

Forty-one (41) sacks last season at Cal left Mendoza, by his own admission, with some undeniably bad habits: a lack of trust in protection, antsy feet in the pocket, a lack of comfort cycling through three or four reads each dropback.

Cignetti, quarterbacks coach Chandler Whitmer and offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan spent the offseason slowing Mendoza down, teaching him to trust, preaching patience and helping Mendoza understand the next level he could reach. The level his game now approaches.

Already an impressive quarterback with the Bears, Mendoza is now joining — whether he’ll admit it or not — conversations about the best quarterback in the country.

In fact, he’s more than joining them. He’s beginning to define them.

Mendoza teased this top-of-the-game dominance when he turned in back-to-back performances of similar quality against Indiana State and Illinois, two ends to the competitive spectrum that each suggested Mendoza’s abilities independent of the stage or the stakes.

“We have so many great players on our team,” Mendoza said. “Whatever spotlight that I might get from the offense’s success, I’m just trying to dish it out to all my teammates, because they really deserve it.”

He was not perfect at Iowa, nor at Oregon. But those are moments when a quarterback should be tough, not perfect, and in each game Mendoza delivered in the pivotal moment. First, the touchdown pass to Sarratt in Iowa City, then that decisive 12-play, 75-yard touchdown drive responding to his own pick-six in the fourth quarter against the Ducks.

On that decisive drive in Eugene, Mendoza was 5 of 7, for 62 yards and what turned out to be the game-winning touchdown.

No such heroics were required Saturday. Just a steady hand and a cool head. Mendoza delivered both.

“He keeps building on previous performances,” Cignetti said. “I can’t say enough good things about him.”

A Heisman Trophy, like a national championship, is a difficult thing to win. That Indiana and its rapidly ascending quarterback approach Halloween chasing both speaks to the remarkable nature of this remarkable season.

There are still miles left to travel. No Big Ten schedule forgives complacency, the thing that might be Cignetti’s greatest enemy between now and the end of the season.

So long as IU’s offensive line keeps Mendoza upright — he took no sacks Saturday — quarterback play isn’t something Cignetti needs to sweat. He’s got a good one. Maybe a great one.

Maybe the best, as Cooper suggested, in all of college football.

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