Win or lose when the Heisman Trophy winner is announced on Saturday night, Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza will have one thing on his mind, football. Whether it be thinking about his coaches and teammates and the journey him and the Hoosiers are on or the belief and optimism his mother, Elsa, gives him. His mind is focused on football. Even when he needs to decompress from football and life, he uses football.
“Decompression is extremely important. However, my decompression is really it does have a lot to do with football, and I do promise this is not a cliche answer.” Mendoza explained. “I really do enjoy football all around whether it’s watching football like last night, I was able to, despite the Monday night countdown announcement, I was able to watch the entire Monday night football game, and that was a great joy and pleasure, because I just, I just really like watching football.”
Mendoza is a football guy.
“I’ll hang out with a lot of teammates. Just came back from dinner with some teammates right now and have some more dinners and just hanging out with teammates after these next couple of nights. And other than that, it’s honestly, hanging out with friends and watching football.” Mendoza said. “That’s, that’s what my life consists of, and that’s I really have a lot of joy, and get a lot of joy from that, from those relationships and aspiring to be the best, because I know I have such a short window of opportunity here that I could do so much with why waste this opportunity? I don’t want to look back when I’m 30 years old like, Wow, if I would have studied more, I could have been a better player at this point. I have such a short window of opportunity that most people, and be quite honest, like as a kid, I’ve dreamed about. So why not give it your all?”
Through 13 games Fernando Mendoza has given Indiana football his all and it is paying dividends. Not only is Mendoza is New York City as a Heisman finalist, he took home the Davey O’Brien Award (Best QB) and Maxwell Trophy (Best Player). All of the individual awards are made possible because Mendoza helped lead the Hoosiers to a 13-0 record and a Big Ten Championship.
The 2025 Hoosiers were never a one-man show and while the Heisman is an individual award, it seems like the Hoosiers are treating it as a team effort to get Mendoza the award. Aiden Fisher, Pat Coogan, Elijah Sarratt and Riley Nowakowski were just some of the teammates who went on the campaign trail for Heis-Mendoza.
“It’s such an honor as a teammate to have such great teammates, and I think that’s what makes this team so special, is the glue that we have with each other, how tight we are with each other. And I really appreciate them campaigning for myself as it means a lot of not only as a teammate, but also as a friend, because with all those guys, have really good friendships with and I would do the same for them in a heartbeat. But to hear that, I think it just shows the genuine authenticity of the relationship that we do have as a lot of those guys,”
When all is said and done this weekend, Mendoza will be back watching football and prepping for the Rose Bowl before his plane leaves the ground from New York because that’s what he does. He just really likes watching football.