Fernando Mendoza finds a home in the Midwest with Curt Cignetti’s resurgent Hoosiers

Quarterback Fernando Mendoza entered the transfer portal last year looking for a new challenge.

His younger brother, Alberto, delivered the perfect pitch.

Soon, the freshman who committed to James Madison out of high school and followed coach Curt Cignetti to Indiana convinced his older, higher-profile brother to join him in Bloomington and now the Mendoza brothers are the top two quarterbacks on the seventh-ranked and still unbeaten Hoosiers.

“It’s that drive to be perfect,” Fernando Mendoza said after last month’s 63-10 rout over then-No. 9 Illinois. “That’s the reason I came here — to become the best quarterback I could and see my development accelerate. I want to keep on accelerating and keep having exponential growth throughout the season.”

Even a master strategist such as Cignetti finds it hard to quibble with the early results.

Through five games, Mendoza has thrown 16 touchdowns and one interception. His completion percentage of 73.0% ranks ninth nationally and only Marshall quarterback Carlos Del Rio-Wilson has a better quarterback rating than Mendoza’s 197.8.

If he continues playing this efficiently, some think he could join the Heisman Trophy race — or maybe even become the first quarterback selected in April’s NFL draft. And if he’s able to keep Indiana (5-0, 2-0 Big Ten) perfect Saturday when it visits No. 3 Oregon (5-0, 2-0), the revised version of Fernandomania could really take off.

Staying focused

The level-headed Mendoza and blunt-talking Cignetti have ignored the chatter and are focused on one thing — playing Indiana football.

“He made some outstanding throws against Iowa, he left some plays out there, too, but he was under pressure quite a bit,” Cignetti said referring to Indiana’s 20-15 victory two weeks ago in their first road game. “I just want Fernando, like the rest of the guys on the team, to relax and play their game. We’re just going to go out there and play our game and play it well.”

The Iowa experience certainly could help the Hoosiers this weekend.

Mendoza now understands how hostile Big Ten road crowds can be and how inhospitable defenses feed off the crowd noise to pressure quarterbacks. Still, when it mattered most, Mendoza looked just fine. He beat an Iowa blitz with a 49-yard catch-and-run, tiebreaking TD to Elijah Sarratt with 88 seconds to go before finally sealing the win with a 40-yard sprint through his own end zone as the clock expired.

He also has the advantage of knowing what to expect Saturday. Two years ago, he made his fifth college start back in Eugene. Things didn’t go nearly so smoothly that day as Mendoza went 18 of 34 with 177 yards and one interception in California’s 63-10 loss to Oregon.

Things didn’t go particularly well for Mendoza in either of his two seasons as Cal’s starter, posting a record of 10-10. He threw 14 TD passes and 10 interceptions in 2023 and was sacked 41 times last year, the second-most in the Football Bowl Subdivision.

On the move

Eventually, the guy who traded the sun-drenched beaches of his South Florida home for the hills of Northern California made one more unthinkable move — teaming up with his brother in the flat, sometimes snowy Midwest to keep Indiana in the playoff hunt for a second straight year.

“We watch film together, we get better together, we have tough times together,” Fernando Mendoza said during spring practice, noting he studied the Hoosiers playbook before ever attending a class. “Having that playbook at home already, because Alberto was in my parent’s house, I definitely started diving into it during Christmas break in the off time. Ever since I’ve been trying to be consistent in the film room, in the playbook in order to gain a mastery (of the offense).”

So far, it’s been everything he could have envisioned.

Mendoza is playing at a high level, winning, turning heads. His draft stock is soaring and everybody’s starting to learn his name. But what Mendoza has enjoyed most is exactly what his brother sold him on — being pushed by Cignetti.

“He’s a phenomenal coach, a phenomenal guy, and he holds you to a high standard, and that’s the main reason I came here,” Mendoza said. “He’s an offensive mind. He holds everyone to a high standard, his program always wins and those are two things I wanted — to be held to a high standard and win.”

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