Hallie GrossmanApr 20, 2026, 08:40 AM ETCloseStaff Writer for ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine Joined ESPN The Magazine after graduating from Penn State University. Covers college football and college basketball.Follow on XMultiple Authors
Mel Kiper Jr.: Fernando Mendoza won’t have to wait long to start for Raiders (0:38)Mel Kiper Jr. weighs in on the Raiders’ potential quarterback dynamic with Kirk Cousins and Fernando Mendoza. (0:38)
“To have,” he says, stops, then tries again. “To potentially have a mentor like that would be pretty impressive.” Underscore, highlight, ALL CAPS that potentially, he all but says out loud.
This is the pinnacle of the Mendoza experience. He looks like a star quarterback dreamed up in a lab: 6-foot-5, 236, respectable mobility, good arm, rarefied accuracy, all the while sounding like few star quarterbacks who have come before. He is, to hear those in his orbit tell it, the most unfootball-like of adjectives: “goofy.”
So goofy (or “awkward” or “different” or “not normal,” depends on who you ask) that one of his old coaches from his Cal days, Tim Plough, now head coach at UC Davis, has fielded a slew of calls from NFL scouts plying him with questions. Is Mendoza always like this? Is he really like this? Is that going to fly in a room of full-grown adults?
THE STORY OF Mendoza’s time in Bloomington, which ended with a cascade of increasingly unfathomable feats — the Heisman crowning, the Big Ten title, the national championship, the 16-0 record, and all this for Indiana (?!) — was a fairytale starring a new kind of hero.
“He’s not …” Plough starts, then pauses, in search of the best way to put this gently. “He’s not the cool guy.”
He calls wide receiver Charlie Becker “Chuck-o-nator,” and calls Nowakowski something “not PG,” and has absolutely no nickname for Curt Cignetti whatsoever, because he does not have a death wish. Cignetti, now going into his third season as Indiana’s head coach, makes Bill Belichick look positively joyful. “Yeah, Cignetti’s not a nicknames guy,” Nowakowski says.
For all his quirks, Mendoza is quick to read a room. Or a sideline. Sometimes Nowakowski would steal a glance at Mendoza and Cignetti conferring in the middle of the game, and snicker at Mendoza’s total, if temporary, transformation. The quarterback had to shift gears to disgruntled grouch in order to game plan.
His eccentricities have an off button. It’s just that Mendoza’s default setting is on, turned all the way up. Which works. It worked at Indiana — killed at Indiana, really. And it will work in the NFL, people think. People hope. People are trying to make sure, which is why Plough fielded all those calls in the first place.
“Is he a little different? Yeah,” one NFL scout says. “Is that going to be a bad thing? I don’t know. The issue that you have is: Can you see him leading your team? Is he going to be the guy that says, ‘You ran the wrong route,’ and then, ‘M-F you,’ in the huddle?”
If you’re inauthentic, Quinn says, these guys will sniff you out. They don’t want to see their young, albeit transcendent, quarterback force leadership that isn’t there. They just want to see him really freaking care.
IF MENDOZA WAS emotionally ruined by the thought of less-than-stellar play, it probably had something to do with this: For much of the 2025 season, he went full football whisperer. That ball did what it was told.
On a wet, miserable day last summer in Bloomington, the team was deciding whether it was dismal enough to abandon its 7-on-7. While his teammates deliberated, Mendoza warmed up with the rest of the quarterbacks. There he was, ripping 50-yard dimes with tight spirals as if the ball weren’t soaking wet. Nowakowski sought out Grant Wilson, another quarterback on Indiana’s roster, because he was curious.
“His football IQ is so high,” says Mike Giddings, owner of Proscout Inc., which has worked with 39 Super Bowl teams in its decades of scouting. “Whether it’s, ‘Oh, he’s got him beat. Throw it out in front of him.’ Or, ‘Oh, he’s got him covered, I’m going to back-shoulder it.’ To me, that’s Peyton-like.”
Giddings does plenty of name-dropping. In Mendoza, he sees Philip Rivers-like preparation, Joe Montana-like game management and Andrew Luck-like facility for making the big play when needed.
Because he was, simply, clutch. Mendoza ranked first in the FBS in expected points added per dropback last year overall (+0.52), second in EPA per dropback on third and fourth downs (+0.58), and fourth in EPA per dropback when tied or trailing in the fourth quarter (+0.66).
Yes, he could do with taking fewer sacks. His arm strength is good but not great, certainly not Josh Allen-level obscene. But there just aren’t that many pokable spots in his game. The NFL ruling class has spoken: He’s the best quarterback in a bad quarterback class. Maybe he’s not a Caleb Williams-Jayden Daniels-Trevor Lawrence god-tier prospect, but his biggest green flag as an NFL hopeful might just be his lack of red flags.
He wouldn’t be here, in these interview rooms with these teams, if not for that success. But ears sure do perk up when they hear a guy has that kind of outsized success and a normal-sized sense of self.
“A lot of quarterbacks come in and they think they’re the man,” one scout says. “And they like the fact that he’s not an egomaniac.”
BEFORE HE WAS anyone’s conquering hero, Mendoza was the quarterback no one wanted. Not even his own team.
Right after he was named the starter, Mendoza showed up to Plough’s office at 9, like normal. “‘Hey, we’re still going to meet, right?'”
Their midnight sessions continued for the year, sometimes just bleeding into time together at Plough’s house with his family. Plough had met his wife back in college when he was coaching in the sorority flag football league and she played on an opposing team. When this football meet-cute was brought to Mendoza’s attention, he had questions. What kind of plays had Plough called? What kind of plays had his wife run? What were those plays called? And why those plays? And how those plays? And …
“It goes from being a joke, like, ‘Oh, that’s just Fernando being Fernando, what a goofball,'” he says, “to like, ‘Oh, no, that’s actually his greatest strength.'”
It will be hard to outwork Mendoza, hard to out-effort Mendoza, Plough says. And impossible to out-Mendoza Mendoza.
He won’t call it a coronation, though there are plenty of people in Indiana this week willing to do the coronating for him.
Word is he received a standing ovation as he walked through St. Elmo Steak House, one of the city’s (and combine’s) most revered institutions, just for the act of getting dinner.
Earlier that day, Mendoza walked the length of a hallway that led to Lucas Oil Stadium, where all the workouts he did not have to do were taking place. At the end of the corridor, a police officer with a buzz cut and white beard manned the security checkpoint. He was there to keep overeager fans at bay, but as Mendoza drew closer, hands in his pocket, the officer turned zealous himself: “Theeeeeere’s Fernando,” he yelled. Then he pointed at the quarterback. “You’re a blessing,” he told him.
And Friday, after he has completed his news conference duties, Mendoza walks past a different security guard, overseeing a different checkpoint, who pulls him aside. “Mr. Mendoza, we’re all so proud of you,” she says, then gives him a black bracelet. A token of her appreciation, perhaps, for what Mendoza just did, for what he might do yet.
His response is like so many of his others: earnest and a touch over the top. It’s impossible to out-Mendoza Mendoza.
Spoiler: He will not. On the first play of the Big Ten title game against Ohio State, Nowakowski was meant to block the edge on a rollout, but he got beat and Mendoza got crushed. The man can take a beating, but even he had to leave the game for a play, and Nowakowski spiraled. He just let the soon-to-be Heisman winner get destroyed. Their whole season rides on this one guy being able to play … and now he might not be able to play. The quarterback returned two plays later and waved off Nowakowski’s repeated apologies. Mendoza was still in pain but was also still Mendoza. “Jolly,” Nowakowski says. No M-Fs in sight. “He was like, ‘Dude, I got cracked!'”
But here’s a spoiler addendum: He doesn’t need to be that kind of leader. Back in 2024, Jayden Daniels had one of the best rookie seasons of all time. The coach who oversaw all that history, Dan Quinn, says the biggest misread on what a young, highly drafted quarterback needs to be is this: “The outside thinks he has to be the leader of the team, right when he walks in the locker room. And that’s not the case. Man, learn the system so well you can be counted on in clutch moments. Be a great teammate. Help others get better. But you don’t have to go lead by ripping a guy for being in the wrong alignment.”
Back in early November, when the Hoosiers were already an endearing story but not yet a mythical one, they survived an unexpected battle at Penn State to stay undefeated. Mendoza had 80 yards and less than two minutes left in the game to try to escape State College with a win, and the effort started with a 7-yard sack. From there, though, it was death by gashing: a 22-yard pass, a 12-yard pass, a 29-yard pass, a 17-yard pass, and a 7-yard touchdown pass that was part brass from Mendoza (two Penn State defenders coming in hot) and part wizardry from his wide receiver (Omar Cooper Jr. toe-tapping a millimeter of grass in the back of the end zone).
After the game, Nowakowski found Mendoza sitting on the bench crying. The quarterback had just authored a game-winning, two-minute fire drill, but he couldn’t stop apologizing. He was so sorry because although he led an amazing final drive, he had played only fine the rest of the game, which is why he needed an amazing final drive in the first place. Nowakowski told him to stop; he couldn’t always be perfect, and he was already more perfect than most of those guys out there anyway. Pat Coogan, Indiana’s center, joined in the rescue effort with some gentle ribbing: “Nando, you are so ridiculous.”