Fernando Mendoza wins 2025 Heisman after historic Indiana season
Indiana QB Fernando Mendoza leads Hoosiers to undefeated season and Big Ten title, wins 2025 Heisman
NEW YORK – Indiana redshirt junior quarterback Fernando Mendoza won the school’s first Heisman Memorial Trophy as college football’s most outstanding player on Saturday night, capping the school’s first stunning comeback victory over the No. 1 seed Hoosiers in two years in this year’s College Football Playoff.
To say that Mendoza came out of nowhere to win this award is an understatement. That’s because he wasn’t on Heisman Trophy oddsmakers’ lists or the Big Ten Conference preseason honorees list.
None of that mattered, as the 22-year-old from Miami, Florida, completed 71.5 percent of his passes for 2,980 yards. He led the nation with 33 touchdown passes (an Indiana school record), ranked second in passer rating, and became the third Big Ten quarterback since 2000 to record at least four passing touchdowns and zero interceptions in three consecutive games.
Mendoza becomes the first Heisman winner from the Big Ten since Ohio State quarterback Troy Smith won in 2006.
Of course, it’s no surprise that a quarterback wins the Heisman Trophy, as 20 of the past 24 winners have played that position. Three Alabama players, running backs Mark Ingram (2009) and Derrick Henry (2015), wide receiver DeVonta Smith (2020), and last year’s winner, Colorado two-way star Travis Hunter, are the only non-quarterbacks to have their personal identities engraved on the 45-pound trophy’s nameplate.
Mendoza, who transferred from California to Indiana this offseason, received 643 first-place votes and 2,362 total points. Diego Pavia, who brought Vanderbilt, a lifelong basement-dweller to the spotlight and led it to its first 10-win season in 122 football seasons, finished second in the voting (189 first-place votes, 1,435 points).
Notre Dame running back Jeremiah Love was third (46, 719) and Ohio State quarterback Julian Sain was fourth (8, 432).
Mr. Mendoza received 95.16% of the total votes cast and won in all six voting regions.
Texas Tech linebacker Jacob Rodriguez finished fifth in the voting (receiving 17 first-place votes), followed by Ohio State wide receiver Jeremiah Smith, Georgia quarterback Gunner Stockton and Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss. Ohio State safety Caleb Downs and Georgia Tech quarterback Haynes King rounded out the top 10.
Before returning to work and preparing for the College Football Playoff, where the top-seeded Hoosiers will face the winner of No. 8 Oklahoma and No. 9 Alabama in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1, Mendoza, a full-time Master of Business Administration student at Indiana’s Kelley School of Business, spent the week collecting a number of other awards, including winning the Maxwell Award, Davey O’Brien Award and Walter Camp Award. He also won the AP College Football Player of the Year Award.
Mendoza’s path to the top of college football was a story in itself. Playing at Christopher Columbus High School, a Catholic private school, he was a two-star recruit and ranked by ESPN as the 72nd best quarterback prospect in his class. With only one Power Four scholarship offer available, Mendoza initially committed to Yale before shifting his focus to California.
He didn’t find immediate success after arriving in Berkeley, redshirting in 2022, but took over the next season and started the Bears’ final eight games. Over three seasons at Cal, he threw 30 touchdowns and achieved that success despite playing under three different offensive coordinators.
But with his younger brother Alberto already listed as a quarterback and earning a bachelor’s degree from the University of California in just three years, the move to Bloomington, 3,200 miles east, was an easy decision. And despite making the playoffs last season, Indiana still entered the season with the most losses in college football history, going 9-27 in the three seasons before coach Curt Cinetti took over, and hadn’t won a bowl game since 1991.
The Hoosiers, who have high expectations this season, were ranked 19th in the preseason AFCA Coaches Poll and dominated their first eight games, including a blowout road win over the then-No. 1 team. 3 Oregon sets the stage for Mendoza’s two Heisman moments.
On Nov. 8, the Hoosiers lost 24-20 to Penn State with 1:51 left in the fourth quarter. Despite being sacked on the first play of the drive, Mendoza completed four consecutive passes before making the final throw to Omar Cooper Jr. for a strike. Cooper Jr. made a spectacular catch in the back of the end zone for a 7-yard touchdown with 36 seconds left, capping off a 10-play, 80-yard drive and preserving his undefeated season.
In his biggest moment of the season against No. 1 Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship, Mendoza led Indiana on a key drive to start the second half, completing a 51-yarder to Charlie Becker and then throwing his only touchdown pass, a 17-yarder to Elijah Surratt.
He then sealed the game late in the fourth quarter, connecting with Becker again for a 33-yard gain and a third down, as Indiana ran out most of the clock and won its first Big Ten championship since 1967.
Now, Mendoza, the seventh transfer to win the Heisman in the past nine years, is trying to lead his team to another unprecedented feat: its first national championship.
