INDIANAPOLIS — Fernando Mendoza will face a gauntlet from opposing NFL defenses this upcoming season, as all rookie quarterbacks do. Defensive coordinators will throw the kitchen sink at the expected No. 1 overall pick. Defenders will try to bait him in the back end and make his time in the pocket a living hell up front.
While we don’t yet know how the Heisman Trophy winner will respond, some defenders who know him best — his former Indiana teammates — have already tried many of those things. And it didn’t work out so well for them.
“Our defense is built a lot on disguise and deception,” Hoosiers linebacker Aiden Fisher explained at the podium on Wednesday at the NFL Scouting Combine. “Any small movement that could give us away, Fernando would catch it. So we were just trying to play with his eyes a lot.
“His arm talent speaks for itself,” he continued. “I think his mental game and his processing is what separates him from everybody else in the country. He’s an unbelievable talent when it comes to that. He’s able to decipher coverages, read blitzes, pick up blitzes with protection. So for us, it was all about showing him one thing but giving him another, and it was really hard to do.”
Hoosiers linebacker Aiden Fisher (No. 4) talks with a reporter while Fernando Mendoza looks on. (Getty Images)
Fisher and defensive backs D’Angelo Ponds and Louis Moore – the Indiana defensive players at this year’s combine – spoke about matching up against Mendoza at practice every day. They all described it as a challenge.
Moore, a second-team AP All-American, doesn’t recall Mendoza throwing many picks in practice.
“He goes through his progressions,” Moore said on Thursday. “He doesn’t stare down receivers. He gets to his drops.
“I feel like an underrated aspect of his game is his running ability. He’s faster than what people think he is,” he added. “Getting first downs. Even being able to take hits.”
Ponds, who had a season-high three pass breakups in Indiana’s national championship win over Miami, described the daily battle with Mendoza as a “chess match.”
“He was good at noticing our zones and things like that,” Ponds said. “Even when we’d try to disguise, he’d try to break us down and know what we were in. Trying to bait him into throwing things was tough to do.”
Fisher – a 2025 finalist for the Butkus Award, which recognizes the nation’s best linebacker – also spoke of Mendoza’s demeanor on the whole team.
There was a calmness he exuded taking the field in tight games, something that didn’t go unnoticed by the defensive players watching from the sideline.
“I think just seeing every fourth quarter when we needed him the most, the poise that he had leading that offense,” Fisher said. “I think a lot of times, teams or quarterbacks can get a little shaky in the fourth quarter. Especially, say, the Penn State game (when Indiana scored a touchdown with 36 seconds left to win 27-24). He ran out there with a smile on his face and all the confidence in the world.”
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Off the field, Moore describes Mendoza as a “great man.”
“I’ve never seen Fernando down,” Moore said. “He’s somebody you just always want to be around. Always positive energy. When he won his Heisman Trophy, he walked around the facility and took a photo with everyone. That was something special that he did that he didn’t have to do.”
Added Fisher: “He’s somebody that just elevates everybody around him. He’s an unbelievable talent, but just an amazing human being to be around.”
