Editor’s note: Fernando Mendoza is entering his first season with the Las Vegas Raiders after winning a national title and being selected with the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft. The Athletic originally ran this story in January 2026.MIAMI, Fla. — Last month, just minutes after Indiana beat Ohio State for its first Big Ten championship in 57 years, Hoosiers quarterback Fernando Mendoza couldn’t hold in his emotions. He had to let loose.“The Hoosiers are flippin’ champs!” he told Fox Sports’ Jenny Taft, before crediting every position group on the team and explaining how the team is “process-oriented.”Flippin’? Process-oriented?
“THE HOOSIERS ARE FLIPPIN’ CHAMPS!” 🗣️@IndianaFootball QB Fernando Mendoza was with @JennyTaft after winning the @bigten championship ‼️ pic.twitter.com/qNJBmXCSfW
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) December 7, 2025For more than a year, Mendoza’s postgame interviews have drawn love and attention for their unique delivery and perfect grammar and prose.Mendoza speaks like a coach or politician — maybe better — laying everything out, often looking into the camera while delivering an answer. He has dropped words like “migration” and “conglomerate” in interviews over the past month. In a world where athletes are trained to say as little as possible for fear of going viral in a bad way, Mendoza seems to always deliver something.“People might think it’s fake, but it’s 100 percent him,” said Alberto Mendoza, Fernando’s brother and fellow Indiana quarterback.How Indiana broke college footballChris VanniniMendoza first went viral last year, as the quarterback at Cal, when he told ACC Network after a late touchdown drive to beat Stanford, “I’ll remember going 98 yards with my boys.” That line landed on T-shirts, but Mendoza’s near-tears proclamation that Cal was 6-6 and would go to a bowl game helped the clip resonate with college football diehards. It’s almost impossible to get a bad quote out of him.“He’s incredible,” head coach Curt Cignetti said. “I take notes.”
