Indiana Hoosiers quarterback and 2025 Heisman Trophy Award winner Fernando Mendoza looks poised to be selected by the Las Vegas Raiders with the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NFL Draft.
How did Mendoza get to this point? Was there a quarterback he tried to emulate?
“As a child, I was always a huge Tom Brady fan. I read a TB12 book. I was always big on the preparation because, like Tom, I’m not the biggest; I’m not the fastest; I’m not the strongest, but the edge is in the intellect and preparation, so I really appreciate him preaching that message from a young age,” Mendoza said on Friday’s edition of “The Herd.”
“What’s really important about being a quarterback is being cerebral, knowing where to go with the ball, knowing your checks, and all those different external factors that you don’t think about when you just think about arm talent and footwork.”
Of course, Brady, who won six Super Bowls with the New England Patriots and one more with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, is first in NFL history with 89,214 passing yards and 649 passing touchdowns.
Across Indiana’s 16 games this season, Mendoza totaled 3,535 passing yards, 41 passing touchdowns, six interceptions and a 182.9 passer rating, while completing 72.0% of his passes. He also rushed for 276 yards and seven touchdowns en route to Indiana winning its first National Championship in program history.
Mendoza, who was the 2025 Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year, led the conference in passing touchdowns and passer rating. Prior to transferring to Indiana, Mendoza spent the first three seasons of his collegiate career at California (2022-24), serving as the Golden Bears’ primary starting quarterback from 2023-24.
Moreover, the quarterbacks of the two teams that appeared in this season’s NFC Championship ended up being a model for Mendoza.
“This past year, our quarterbacks coach, Chandler Whitmer, who’s now the quarterback coach for the Buccaneers with Baker Mayfield right now, he made me watch every single clip of [Seattle Seahawks quarterback] Sam Darnold from the past year and [Los Angeles Rams quarterback] Matthew Stafford,” Mendoza said. “They had a little bit of a similar system as we did at Indiana for some of the play-action game and the drop-back game, and it was great to see their footwork and really how they process the game.
“It helped me learn a lot about the NFL game because you always see the highlights, but it was really interesting to see how they dealt with plays that didn’t go their way, when they needed to throw the ball away, or they needed to check it down, and I think that really helped my efficiency this year.”
Mendoza noted that he feels his “footwork” has to improve in the NFL. As for the players that Mendoza was studying, Stafford was named the 2025 NFL MVP on Thursday night, while Darnold and the Seahawks will face off against the Patriots in Super Bowl LX on Sunday.
