ATLANTA – Indiana University has seen its fair share of high-caliber point guards. In all five national championships and 22 Big Ten titles, Indiana’s floor generals have placed an unforgettable imprint on their many postseason runs. It’s time to add another all-time great to the list.
Fernando Mendoza.
Being a point guard is all about efficiency and controlling a smooth operation. Those traits hold true for both basketball and football. Indiana’s quarterback has done it better than anyone in the country this season. His performance during Indiana’s 56-22 dismantling of Oregon in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl was just the latest instance.
Mendoza finished 17-for-20 passing for 177 yards and five touchdowns. Seven different receivers caught a pass and four had a touchdown. Oregon’s struggling defense seemingly left somebody open all night long, Mendoza just had to seek the right guy and make the right throw. He did it to near perfection.
“My job is to be effective with making really accurate balls and really great decisions, and that's what I pride myself on every single play,” Mendoza said. “I'm glad those results came.”
It was a major development since the first matchup against Oregon back in October. In that matchup he finished 20-for-31 for 215 yards with a touchdown and a pick-six. Only four players caught a pass in that contest. While it was an Indiana win on the road, it was not the clean-cut, pristine display of football that Indiana played on Friday.
Through two College Football Playoff games in 2026, Mendoza is 31-for-36 for 369 yards and eight touchdowns. He has thrown for more touchdowns than incompletions in both games. No other quarterback has accomplished the feat more than twice in this century. Mendoza has done it five times now this season. While Mendoza’s historic display of efficiency has earned him national recognition as the best quarterback in college football, he deflects the recognition to the rest of his team.
“I’m like a point guard out there. I'm throwing to the open guy, and they shoot the 3s,” Mendoza said. “I got the glory and the fame, but those guys are the ones that make the shots.”
Just as Indiana basketball could not have won it all in 1976 without Quinn Buckner or 1981 without Isiah Thomas, Indiana football would not be playing for a title without Mendoza. That does not mean they are the only factors. Buckner had teammates like Scott May and Kent Benson. Thomas had teammates like Ray Tolbert and Randy Whitman. Mendoza has the best team in college football around him. It is a mutual relationship. Teams struggle without their point guards playing at a high level. Point guards cannot play at a high level without their team playing well.
That relationship has turned Indiana into a machine. The football revolution at Indiana is unstoppable. The nation has fallen in love with the incredible turnaround story. One 60-minute game of football stands between turning the losingest program in history into a national champion in just two years.
Nothing else matters besides the task at hand for Mendoza. That has not changed since week one. The newest task, winning the national championship, is no different than each of the last 15 tasks, winning the next game on the schedule.
Mendoza’s mission remains the same to solidify his team in the history books: be the best point guard in football for one more game.
