Fernando Mendoza is Indiana’s first Heisman Trophy winner.
The junior quarterback beat Vanderbilt QB Diego Pavia, Notre Dame RB Jeremiyah Love and Ohio State QB Julian Sayin to win the 2025 Heisman on Saturday night. Mendoza won the award as Indiana went undefeated in the regular season, took down Ohio State in the Big Ten title game and is the No. 1 seed for the College Football Playoff.
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“Standing here tonight, holding this bad boy, representing Indiana University still doesn’t feel real,” Mendoza said after winning the award. “If you told me as a kid in Miami, that I’d be here on stage holding this prestigious trophy, I probably would have laughed, cried like I’m doing now or both. Because this moment, it’s an honor, it’s bigger than me. It’s a product of a family, team, community and a whole lot of people who believed in me long before anybody knew my name.”
Mendoza then ended his Heisman speech by noting that he wasn’t the most prized recruit coming out of high school and said that he almost quit football during his first season in the fourth grade.
“I want every kid out there who feels overlooked, underestimated to know I was you,” Mendoza said. “I was that kid too. I was in your shoes. The truth is, you don’t need the most stars, hype, or rankings. You just need discipline, heart and people who believe in you. And you need to believe in your own abilities. I hope this moment shows you that chasing your dreams are worth it, no matter how big or impossible they seem.”
Mendoza finished with a voting tally of 2,362 total points, with 643 first-place votes. Pavia was second with 1,435 points and 189 first-place votes. Jeremiyah Love finished third with 719 points and Sayin was fourth with 432 points.
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The Cal transfer is 226-of-316 passing for 2,980 yards and 33 touchdowns with just six interceptions. Mendoza has thrown the most touchdown passes of any player in college football and ranks second in total touchdowns behind South Florida’s Byrum Brown. Mendoza has the second-best pass efficiency rating in the country (181.4) behind Sayin at 182.1 and he is also one of just 10 quarterbacks who have completed over 70% of their passes this season.
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Mendoza is the fourth straight Heisman winner who transferred schools during his college career and the second in that span to win the Heisman in his first year at his school. His win also breaks an odd drought for the Big Ten and a Heisman pattern that dated back to the award’s inception in 1935.
In addition to being Indiana’s first Heisman winner in over 127 seasons of football dating back to 1899, he’s the first Big Ten player to win the Heisman since Ohio State quarterback Troy Smith. And Mendoza is the first quarterback to win the Heisman in a year that ends with a “5.” Over the past nine decades — starting with Jay Berwanger’s inaugural Heisman win in 1935 — a running back has always won the award in a “5” year. In 2015, Alabama RB Derrick Henry won the Heisman. Twenty years ago, USC RB Reggie Bush took home the award.
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Before coming to Indiana, Mendoza played two seasons at Cal and was one of the more efficient passers in the country in 2024 even if the Bears went just 6-7. Across 11 games, he completed 69% of his passes and threw for over 3,000 yards.
As Mendoza was doing that, more than halfway across the country Indiana was in the midst of its best season ever under coach Curt Cignetti. The Hoosiers went 11-1 in the regular season under Cignetti before losing to Notre Dame in the first round of the College Football Playoff. It was the first time Indiana had ever won more than nine games in a single season and just the third time ever that the Hoosiers finished the season in the top 10 of the AP Top 25.
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And Indiana is even better in 2025.
With younger brother Alberto already on the Indiana roster, Mendoza transferred from Cal after the season when Kurtis Rourke, Indiana’s stellar QB in 2024, was out of eligibility. After a slow start to the season — Mendoza completed 18-of-31 passes for 193 yards and no touchdowns in a 13-point win over Old Dominion — he started putting up cartoonish stat lines while sitting out a lot of fourth-quarter football.
Against FCS Indiana State in Week 3, Mendoza threw five touchdowns and had just one incompletion. The next week against Illinois, Mendoza again had more TD passes than incompletions as he was 21-of-23 passing for 267 yards and five scores.
Overall, Mendoza had four games in 2025 where he had as many or more touchdowns than he had incompletions. He also had just three games in which he completed less than 63% of his passes and didn’t have a single game with multiple interceptions.
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Before the Big Ten title game win over Ohio State, Mendoza’s signature moment came on the road at Penn State. After Indiana forced a Penn State punt with 1:51 to go and trailing 24-20, Mendoza led the Hoosiers on a 10-play, 80-yard drive that ended on an incredible throw to Omar Cooper Jr. as he made an even better catch.
The TD kept Indiana’s undefeated season alive as the Hoosiers won 27-24. From there, they beat Wisconsin and Purdue by a combined score of 87-10 before their slugfest 13-10 win over the Buckeyes a week ago.
