Fernando Mendoza was destined to make tears tumble down cheeks. After he posed behind essentially the most prestigious particular person award in faculty soccer and grabbed maintain of the Heisman Trophy with every hand and flashed his extensive grin, the Indiana quarterback delivered one other of his patented, impassioned speeches crammed with authenticity, love and, above all else, humility.
“This second, it’s an honor. It’s greater than me,” he mentioned on stage Saturday night time. “It’s a product of a household, workforce, neighborhood and a complete lot of people that believed in me lengthy earlier than anyone knew my identify.”
The 22-year-old redshirt junior, who has led the Hoosiers to a No. 1 general seed within the School Soccer Playoff at 13-0 was named the 2025 Heisman Trophy winner Saturday night in New York Metropolis. The 6-foot-5, 225-pounder from Miami not solely had a stat line worthy of the designation, however had what all eventual Heisman winners want: Heisman moments.
The inch-perfect move lobbed to wideout Omar Cooper Jr. at the back of the top zone at Penn State that cemented not solely one of the vital iconic flashpoints of this season however in Indiana soccer historical past. The deep ball to receiver Charlie Becker within the Large Ten title sport towards Ohio State on a third-and-6 from Indiana’s personal 24-yard line that went for 33 yards. Mendoza flung it and put it solely the place his receiver may get it, furthering a drive that may ultimately assist seal Indiana’s first outright convention title since 1945.
His stat line that earned him the Heisman: 33 touchdowns (essentially the most in faculty soccer in 2025), six interceptions, 2,980 passing yards and a 71.5 p.c completion share.
Mendoza’s Heisman speech was predictably about every little thing and everybody however him. He credited God. He thanked his dad and mom, Fernando Sr. and Elsa, and his youthful brother and roommate, Alberto, his backup on Indiana’s soccer workforce. He thanked his grandparents in attendance in Spanish, because the Cuban-American grew to become the second Heisman winner in historical past of Latin descent. After which the listing, the very lengthy listing of these from everywhere in the nation that listened to Mendoza over time go on about how a lot he needed to grasp the toughest place in sports activities.
In 2022, he was a two-star recruit from South Florida. He was ranked the No. 140 quarterback nationally by 247Sports. He had no Energy 4 provides popping out of highschool. Some Heisman winners take the lengthy path to the Large Apple. This 12 months’s winner’s route was as circuitous and — in terms of the glitz of the Heisman — as unpredictable because it has been within the historical past of the award. He initially dedicated to dwell the Ivy League life at Yale, however when Cal supplied him, jumped on the chance to go west.
In three years, he earned his bachelor’s diploma. However he sought out a possibility to get a grasp’s in soccer, too. So he entered the switch portal and shortly discovered a spot within the Midwest, on a roster that featured his youthful brother, for a workforce that had simply gone to the Playoff.
Heisman winners’ recruiting rankings
12 months
Winner
TM
Pos
247 Comp Rank
2025
Fernando Mendoza
QB
2-star (No. 2,149)
2024
Travis Hunter
CB/WR
5-star (No. 1)
2023
Jayden Daniels
QB
4-star (No. 35)
2022
Caleb Williams
QB
5-star (No. 7)
2021
Bryce Younger
QB
5-star (No. 2)
2020
DeVonta Smith
WR
4-star (No. 62)
2019
Joe Burrow
QB
4-star (No. 295)
2018
Kyler Murray
QB
5-star (No. 34)
2017
Baker Mayfield
QB
3-star (No. 1,021)
2016
Lamar Jackson
QB
3-star (No. 398)
2015
Derrick Henry
RB
5-star (No. 12)
2014
Marcus Mariota
RB
3-star (No. 512)
2013
Jameis Winston
QB
5-star (No. 16)
2012
Johnny Manziel
QB
3-star (No. 383)
2011
Robert Griffin III
QB
4-star (No. 311)
2010
Cam Newton
QB
5-star (No. 26)
Hoisting the Heisman isn’t simply because of one sensational season. It’s not even because of what some could name recency bias, due to a historic convention title. For some, like Mendoza, it’s derived from all the times when nobody knew his identify. In 247 Sports activities’ nationwide composite rating his senior 12 months, he was the two,149th highschool prospect in his class.
The longest of lengthy photographs in Heisman historical past is now a part of essentially the most unique membership in faculty soccer.
Mendoza’s athleticism comes from each of his dad and mom. His dad performed on the identical offensive line at Miami Columbus Excessive — an all-boys Catholic faculty — with College of Miami coach Mario Cristobal within the Eighties. His mom was a star tennis participant at Lourdes Academy — an all-girls Catholic faculty — and went on to play tennis at Miami.
It was Elsa, Fernando insists, who taught him how one can throw a soccer. The truth is she taught him how one can take a punch and maintain combating for his desires with a smile on his face. Elsa was recognized with a number of sclerosis 18 years in the past, and she or he stored her battle personal from her sons till not too long ago, when the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 led to her well being declining.
“After I see her combating so laborious and at all times being optimistic, at all times having that self-discipline, at all times sticking to her routine, it actually units an important customary and instance for myself,” Mendoza mentioned not too long ago in an interview for the Maxwell Award. “My mother is my inspiration, my gentle, my optimistic supply. I discuss to my mother in all probability 5 – 6 instances a day.”
On stage Saturday night time, a teary Mendoza instructed his mom that the Heisman was as a lot her trophy because it was his.
“You taught me,” he mentioned, addressing Elsa, “that toughness doesn’t should be loud. It may be quiet and robust. It’s selecting hope. It’s believing in your self when the world doesn’t provide you with a lot cause to.”
When Fernando determined to go away Belen Jesuit, one other all-boys Catholic faculty in Miami, for rival Columbus within the tenth grade, Elsa bought on the telephone and known as her outdated highschool buddy, Sylvie Galvez-Cuesta, the director of Columbus’ prestigious Mas Household honors program (named after brothers Jorge and Jose Mas, majority homeowners of MLS champion Inter Miami and Columbus Excessive grads).
Despite the fact that Fernando left Belen to run a extra quarterback-friendly offense with the Explorers, Elsa needed to ensure her son continued to make high-level teachers a precedence, too. Mendoza signed up for 12 superior placement lessons in his three years at Columbus, together with six of the seven programs his senior 12 months when he had a 5.4 grade level common. He graduated with a 4.86 GPA.
“He was at all times targeted on ensuring that his schedule was rigorous,” mentioned Galvez-Cuesta, who flew to New York to be with the Mendozas on Saturday. “He didn’t wish to be a dumb jock.”
Mendoza hosted a podcast in his senior 12 months with three classmates and interviewed Miami’s mayor. He was president of campus ministry and led a Thanksgiving turkey drive with the Miami-Dade police division; they collected 436 turkeys, price $17,440, for households in want.
On the soccer subject, it didn’t take Columbus coach Dave Dunn lengthy to see that his backup quarterback was a extremely motivated particular person. Fernando would present as much as Dunn’s workplace daily for lunch with a pen and paper. He was additionally an prompt hit the second he lastly bought his alternative to play and begin as a junior and senior. Irrespective of how a lot, although, Dunn tried to get his buddies on the faculty stage to present Mendoza a shot, most handed. They didn’t assume he was cellular sufficient.
“I used to be a Division I recruiting coordinator at one level in my life, and I instructed all of them this child is gonna be a stud,” Dunn mentioned.
When Mendoza entered the portal in December, Dunn bought much more telephone calls from faculty coaches than he did 4 years in the past.
Now, NFL scouts are those blowing up Dunn’s telephone.
Mendoza’s highschool teammates are ecstatic for him. The Explorers’ soccer workforce group chat has been electrical for the final month, mentioned Ryan Rodriguez, a College of Miami offensive lineman who was a senior at Columbus when Mendoza first took over because the workforce’s beginning quarterback as a junior.
The 2020 Explorers that Mendoza led completed 9-0 and gained the tri-county championship. The workforce wasn’t allowed to play for a state title due to the pandemic. The next season, Mendoza led an especially younger workforce to a 9-4 season and the state semifinals.
Each time Mendoza comes residence from faculty, gamers get collectively on the lakefront residence of Gus McGee, one in every of Mendoza’s closest buddies and a decent finish who’s a redshirt junior at Charlotte. They go fishing and tubing, and journey jet skis collectively.
“My teammates and I name him Little Brady,” Rodriguez mentioned. “Now you see him, and he’s a bit Kirk Cousins-esque in his character. He doesn’t cuss. It’s not the worst factor. I like a bit nerd in my quarterback.”
Rodriguez mentioned he texted Mendoza when he bought within the portal in December about transferring to Miami to switch Cam Ward, the No. 1 choose in final 12 months’s draft. Ultimately, Rodriguez mentioned, Mendoza made the right alternative in becoming a member of Alberto at Indiana.
Mentioned Galvez-Cuesta: “Now we simply must hope he’s a Miami Dolphin someday.”
Columbus is celebrating Mendoza’s Heisman by shopping for billboards across the county to have fun his achievement, and college students are being inspired to come back to high school Monday wearing Hoosiers’ crimson.
“If there have been 25 hours within the day,” Indiana coach Curt Cignetti mentioned earlier this season, “he’d spend all 25 getting ready to be nice.”
Mendoza is a real underdog story in Heisman lore. (Adam Starvation / Getty)
1000’s of miles away from residence on the West Coast, Mendoza redshirted as a real freshman in 2022 and went into the 2023 season as a third-string Cal quarterback with solely his immeasurable want to stand up the ladder to information him.
These had been the headset days. Again when Mendoza wore a skinny jersey to cowl up his No. 15 and helped sign in performs to incumbent quarterbacks forward of him. So he took it upon himself to search out methods to be taught extra, be taught quicker, to be finest ready for the chance if it had been to current itself. Third-stringers don’t get a lot one-on-one time with offensive coordinators, so Mendoza requested Cal’s former tight ends coach, Tim Plough, if they may meet.
From 9 p.m. to midnight, the 2 sat within the coaches’ workplace inside California Memorial Stadium and reviewed not solely sport movie, however follow movie, too. Mendoza, a famend note-taker, carries old-school computation notebooks with him to jot down issues down by hand. And, like a thoughts attempting to resolve a vexing equation, he would go over notes repeatedly in his head.
“I’ve had guys which have had that very same depth and identical strategy to soccer,” mentioned Plough, now the pinnacle coach at UC Davis, “however I’ve by no means coached a man who approached every little thing that method.”
Mendoza graduated from Cal’s revered Haas College of Enterprise as a enterprise administration main. He took internships at actual property funding corporations ACRE and Newmark within the Bay Space. He would race from follow to his automotive to alter right into a shirt and tie and drive by way of site visitors to get there on time.
Former Cal quarterback and radio play-by-play analyst Mike Pawlawski grew to become one in every of Mendoza’s mentors. When Pawlawski would invite Mendoza over to dinner at his residence within the East Bay, Mendoza would dangle on each phrase, a lot in order that if he felt like they had been going to have interaction in a dialog about elevating psychological efficiency, Mendoza usually had his hand in his backpack, reaching for his pocket book earlier than Pawlawski may even end his thought.
“I’ve instructed him 1,000,000 instances he can name me ‘Mike’ or ‘Coach,’” Pawlawski mentioned, “and he nonetheless calls me ‘Mr. Pawlawski.’”
Mendoza made his first profession collegiate begin in a 52-40 loss to No. 15-ranked Oregon State on Oct. 7, 2023. From that time on, he flourished. At the same time as Cal’s offensive play callers and ideologies shifted from 12 months to 12 months, Mendoza proved adaptable. In 2024, he began for the eventual 6-7 Golden Bears, a season highlighted by a 98-yard fourth-quarter drive to beat rival Stanford. After the win, Mendoza’s rousing interview on the sector, full along with his signature voice cracks, supplied the school soccer world a glimpse into No. 15.
The time period “going 98 yards with my boys” grew to become a staple inside the Cal soccer neighborhood.
“What makes him particular is he’s keen to do all of the work and his ego by no means will get in the best way,” Pawlawski mentioned.
A 12 months later, Mendoza was as soon as once more delivering a message the one method he may into the microphone inside Lucas Oil Stadium after main the Hoosiers to a Large Ten crown. So cognizant of the second, he didn’t wish to drop an f-bomb on dwell TV so in his haze of pleasure, he mentioned, “Now the Hoosiers are flippin’ champs.”
Indiana’s athletic division took a Mendozian strategy to its Heisman marketing campaign that started ramping up final month. The “HeisMendoza” marketing campaign hit the social media website LinkedIn, as a result of that’s the one social media presence Mendoza has.
“His LinkedIn is for actual,” mentioned Fernando Sr., a pediatric emergency physician in Miami.“That’s an important homage to his true self.”
“That’s actually the one social media he actually has,” Elsa mentioned.
The LinkedIn web page lists his educational accomplishments, which embrace getting his MBA from Indiana’s Kelley College of Enterprise. Beneath High Abilities, it lists: “Relationship Constructing • Works Nicely Beneath Strain • Staff Management • Expert Multi-tasker • Landing Passes & Excessive Fives.”
All of which had been highlighted in what was the centerpiece of his Heisman spotlight reel performed Saturday night time when, within the face of two Penn State defenders, Mendoza floated that move to Cooper Jr. earlier this 12 months. His dad and mom say he doesn’t tremble when confronted with such a pressure-filled second.
“Someplace in there it’s in his DNA,” Fernando Sr. mentioned. “When he’s on the market, he simply locks in within the second and goes into what the youngins name ‘a movement state.’”
There wasn’t time for any form of movement state within the convention title sport. Eight seconds into the lean to determine who would win the Large Ten and earn the No. 1 general seed on this 12 months’s Playoff, Mendoza was rocked on a success by Ohio State’s Caden Curry. In an look on “The Pat McAfee Present” final week, Mendoza known as it “a complete gutshot.” There was Mendoza, on the largest stage of a profession no person past his interior circle ever noticed coming, greedy on the turf in Indianapolis, attempting to inhale with out ache. In these agonizing seconds, he instructed himself he may keep down and let the ache win, or he may discover a approach to rise.
In a tribute to her son, Elsa launched a letter to Fernando on “The Gamers’ Tribune” this week, delving into all the times that constructed him into the individual he’s at present. She reminded him that when he first began enjoying pee wee soccer, his declaration that he needed to be a quarterback was quickly met with a spot down a bit child’s depth chart: He was a QB4. On the flooring stage of a depth chart or buried 1000’s deep in highschool rankings, it by no means bothered him a lot. He preferred a problem, as a result of it meant he may be taught and apply it to make himself that significantly better.
It paid off.
When Mendoza was executed scanning the room, thanking these in attendance, he turned to the digital camera and gave a message to each child who feels ignored or underestimated: Rankings can’t correctly measure one’s personal insatiable drive, and that aspirations, regardless of how unattainable, may be attained.
“I used to be you,” he mentioned.
