Fernando Mendoza’s Evaluation is Much Harder Than it Seems
- Ryan McCrary
- Mar 7
- 5 min read
Fernando Mendoza was arguably the best player in college football in 2025, and he's currently the No. 1 player on the consensus big board for the 2026 NFL Draft. He also has some serious red flags that nobody seems to want to talk about.
Both of these things are true.
After two seasons at California, where he quietly built a cult following among draft junkies, Mendoza transferred to Indiana and put together a historic season, winning the Heisman trophy and leading the Hoosiers to a 16-0 record and the first national championship in program history.
Now he's the consensus No. 1 pick, and it's essentially a foregone conclusion that the Las Vegas Raiders will select him first overall.
But I think Mendoza is a trickier evaluation than most people realize. His 2025 tape is intriguing, but his entire collegiate career tells a more complicated story. Today, I'm going to break down why Mendoza's skill set fits the modern NFL, while also exploring the red flags that make me question just how good he can be at the next level.
Let's start with the good, because there is plenty of it.
Fernando Mendoza was fantastic during the 2025 college football season, completing 71.5% of his passes for 3,536 yards, 41 touchdowns, and 6 interceptions. He was one of the most productive quarterbacks in the nation while leading an elite offense.
One of his biggest strengths this season was his ability to play on time and operate at a high level within structure. He's a very good short and intermediate passer, and he's very comfortable playing like a pass-first point guard who plays within the flow of the offense and doesn't try to extend plays when it's not necessary.
This season, he had an average time to throw of 2.67 seconds, which is very good, and he ranked second among Power Four quarterbacks in passer rating on dropbacks that last under 2.5 seconds, with a mark of 126.4.
I also appreciate how good his accuracy was across the board this season. He completed 71.5% of his passes, with an average depth of target of 9.8 yards. Being this accurate without relying too heavily on short passes and checkdowns is very impressive. On top of this, Mendoza is able to throw the ball accurately to all parts of the field, as he ranked top ten in adjusted completion percentage on short, intermediate, and deep passes.
His accuracy is very apparent when he throws fades and back-shoulder throws. He torched Miami in the national championship game with multiple back-shoulder throws in big moments, and he executes these types of throws consistently. I'm not comparing these two players' skillsets, but this part of Mendoza's game reminds me of Joe Burrow at LSU.
Mendoza also executes throws outside the numbers at a high level. He's got a pretty good arm, and he is able to push the ball to the boundary even when he's throwing from the opposite hash. Some pocket passers struggle to execute these throws because their arm simply isn't strong enough, but that's not a problem for Mendoza. This will allow him to stretch defenses outside in the NFL, which will open up the middle of the field, where many high-YAC plays occur.
So far, so good, right? Here's where things get complicated.
Although Mendoza is great at playing on time and throwing the ball accurately, he needs to improve at avoiding sacks and protecting the football. He did a good job limiting interceptions in 2025, but he never had a season with a turnover-worthy play rate below 2.5% in college, and his career turnover-worthy play rate is 3.5%, which ranks in the 32nd percentile among quarterback prospects since 2017.
Avoiding sacks was consistently a big issue for Mendoza throughout his college career as well, and it was a bit of an issue for him in 2025. His pressure-to-sack rate was 18.9% this season, and that mark ranked 43rd among Power Four quarterbacks. His career pressure-to-sack rate of 21.1% is very poor historically, as it ranks in the 18th percentile among quarterback prospects since 2017.
Here is a chart that shows Fernando Mendoza compared to a few quarterback prospects since 2017 that have a similar career turnover-worthy play rate and career pressure-to-sack rate. This is not a group you want to be in, and it signals that Mendoza may have some processing issues.
That was rough, but it's not all doom and gloom. Let's get back to what Mendoza does well.
One of Mendoza's most underrated traits is his mobility. He is very mobile for a pocket passer, and he can use his legs to extend plays, and he can even be used on designed quarterback runs. We saw Indiana do that this year, and Mendoza averaged a solid 23.6 rushing yards per game.
His mobility shows up in the passing game too, as he's able to make throws on the run, and this means he can run bootlegs, which expands the playbook and forces the defense to be ready for everything.
One last issue I want to hit on regarding Mendoza's passing ability is his deep ball passing and his aggressiveness in general. On the surface, he looked like an elite deep thrower in 2025, and he had some genuinely high-level throws pushing the ball down the field.
However, he had a few deep balls in big games where he underthrew the ball despite having an open receiver he definitely should've connected with. These plays make me question his arm strength and just how much he can stretch the defense vertically.
What concerns me even further is how little Mendoza threw the ball deep and over the middle of the field across his collegiate career. His career deep ball attempt rate was a measly 12.4% (8th percentile), and his career MOF attempt rate was just 17.8% (47th percentile).
With these marks ranking below average for quarterback prospects since 2017, it's fair to question whether Mendoza is aggressive enough as a passer to carve up defenses like the best passing quarterbacks in the NFL do. He almost seems allergic to throwing over the middle of the field, and that is a huge problem.
Although I have serious concerns about Mendoza's profile, he has a special trait that isn't quantifiable: his character. He is a tough competitor with a contagious personality who radiates joy. His toughness was on full display when he took a big hit early in the Big Ten championship against Ohio State, then returned to the action and had a great game.
This, combined with his positive attitude, will make him a beloved leader in the locker room. I'm not sure there's anyone you'd rather lead your locker room than Mendoza, and that's a big deal. The value of this is something you cannot measure with statistics.
Overall, I am intrigued by Fernando Mendoza as a prospect. His ability to play on time and execute in structure, while also having the mobility to extend plays and carry the ball on designed quarterback runs, makes him more interesting than most pocket passers and gives him a chance to be an efficient floor general from the pocket with serious juice outside of structure.
He is far from a perfect prospect, though. His decision-making and sack avoidance have to improve, and I want to see him be more comfortable throwing the ball to the middle of the field. If he can improve in these areas, he has a chance to develop into a pretty good quarterback in the NFL. If not, I think his floor is much lower than many people will admit.
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