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Mendoza Mania has arrived in the NFL.
Fernando Mendoza, the projected No. 1 overall pick in this year’s draft, brings one of football’s most unexpected stories to the pros.
Legendary football agent Leigh Steinberg, who has represented an NFL record eight first overall draft picks, believes what separates Mendoza from the other hyped prospects is his word.
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“The way he relates to people,” Steinberg said was the most unique part of Mendoza, in an interview with Pakinomist Digital.
“He seems to have a really good touch with teammates. He seems to be a natural leader. He carries himself well in interviews. He relates well in everything. And then a franchise quarterback’s job is to represent the franchise, and he becomes the most visible face of a franchise. And you know, he’s handsome. I think he speaks well for the team, and speaks well for the team.”
How did a kid from Florida who knows one become a Heisman Trophy winner, national champion and the NFL’s next big thing?
Mendoza’s grandparents fled communist Cuba
The reason Fernando Mendoza is in the United States and making his mark on soccer history is because of a bold decision made by his grandparents decades ago.
After Fidel Castro took control of Cuba and installed a communist regime, all four of Mendoza’s grandparents fled the country and came to America.
“We all thought it was temporary,” Mendoza’s maternal grandfather Alberto Espino previously told The Washington Post of “There was no way the United States was going to allow a communist regime 90 miles away.”
But Castro’s reign endured, so Espino and the Mendozas remained in the United States and built their lives as Americans. That meant American sports.
Mendoza’s parents were star athletes
Both of his parents grew up in Miami, Florida as children of Cuban refugees.
Mendoza’s father, Fernando Mendoza Sr., was a rower at Brown University and a 1987 Junior World Championships gold medalist.
But Mendoza’s father also played football when he was younger and was teammates with Miami Hurricanes head coach Mario Cristobal at Christopher Columbus High School in the 1980s. Mendoza would go on to defeat his father’s former teammate in this year’s CFP national championship game.
Meanwhile, his mother, Elsa Mendoza, played tennis at the University of Miami.
When Mendoza was a child, his mother was diagnosed with a serious illness
Mendoza was born in Boston in 2003, the first of his parents’ three children, before his family moved back to Miami, Florida, where he would grow up.
But when Mendoza was only about four years old, his mother was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. It is a chronic, autoimmune disease of the central nervous system that can affect the brain and spinal cord. She has been in a wheelchair for the past few years.
Elsa Mendoza wrote about the experience in a 2015 letter to her sons that was published in The Player’s Tribune.
“I was diagnosed about 18 years ago, but of course you never knew. You and Alberto were so young and I was fine… and mostly I didn’t want you to worry. It just felt like this impossible thing to place on you. On my sweet boys. And then I continued to be fine until about 10 years ago when we were skiing and I broke my ankle,” she wrote, kneeling.
“But even after that, I wasn’t quite ready to tell you—only that my leg hadn’t healed all the way, and that’s why your mom was limping. It wasn’t until five years ago, when I got Covid, that things started going downhill in a way where there was no hiding it anymore. It was during football season, and I realized I didn’t want to travel, and I didn’t want to travel, and I couldn’t think of you wanting to support you. suddenly I wasn’t yours games, I hated that, so that’s when I knew we had to put you and your brother down.
She went on to recall, “how hard a conversation it ended up being. ‘Your mom has this degenerative disease … and even though we don’t know how it’s going to develop, it’s going to start affecting us in a few ways. But it’s not going to affect us in the ways that matter. We’re going to have each other and love each other and be there for each other. I promise.”
He grew up Catholic and attended an elite Catholic school
As a young boy, Mendoza collected mangoes from his grandparents’ garden and sold them door-to-door to his neighbors.
Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza looks to throw a pass during the school’s NFL pro day in Bloomington, Indiana, on April 1, 2026. (AJ Mast/AP Photo)
Not only did he embrace capitalism as a youth, but he also embraced Catholicism.
He later followed in his father’s footsteps by playing football at Christopher Columbus High School – an elite, $18,000-a-year private Catholic all-boys school with a football program.
As the team’s starting quarterback his senior year, he led his team to an 11-3 record and the 2021 FHSAA Class 8A semifinals.
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But that wasn’t enough to earn the love of many college scouts.
As a two-star recruit, Mendoza was ranked 2,149th. ranked recruit in the country in his high school class. He did not receive a single FBS scholarship.
He passed Yale on to Cal Berkeley
With limited offers outside of college, Mendoza almost accepted an Ivy League education and football spot without a scholarship at Yale. But instead he headed across the country to try his luck in California, Berkeley.
He didn’t get the starting job on day one; instead, he redshirted, studied the game and quietly earned his business degree from the prestigious Haas School of Business in just three years.
At quarterback, he earned the starting job in 2023 and 2024, becoming Cal’s all-time leader in completion percentage (66.4%) and tied for 7th in 250-yard passing games.
California Golden Bears quarterback Fernando Mendoza stands on the field after the game against the Arizona Wildcats at FTX Field at California Memorial Stadium in Berkeley, California on September 24, 2022. (Darren Yamashita/USA TODAY Sports)
But his college football career hadn’t even really begun.
The Indiana decision
In 2025, Mendoza made the decision to move to Indiana. What followed is considered one of the most improbable runs in college football history.
He threw for 3,535 yards, 41 touchdowns and only 6 interceptions, completing over 72% of his passes while also adding seven rushing touchdowns, and won the Heisman Trophy.
“It is very often only at the end of their [college] career that they show exactly those qualities. So there was a lot of maturing,” Steinberg said of Mendoza’s rise in senior year. “There’s been a number of players who were late bloomers … you get them at the height of their arc and they put it all together. It takes time to read defenses and see the field.”
So when the playoffs started, he cemented his name in college football history. He threw eight touchdowns with just five incompletions in the playoff openers against Alabama in the Rose Bowl and Oregon in the Fiesta Bowl.
In the national championship game played in his hometown of Miami against his hometown university Miami Hurricanes, he was named the CFP National Championship Offensive Player of the Game, delivering a decisive 12-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter to seal the title.
Indiana Hoosiers quarterback Fernando Mendoza holds the trophy after the College Football Playoff National Championship game at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Fla., on Jan. 19, 2026. (Mark J. Rebilas/Imagn Images)
Indiana became the first time in modern college football history to go a perfect 16-0 behind Mendoza’s leadership, making a case for one of the greatest CFB quarterback seasons ever.
Now the real work begins
With the Las Vegas Raiders set to pick first in the NFL Draft this year, Mendoza appears destined for Sin City.
Steinberg believes that the fit will work well in terms of football and business.
“He’s a perfect fit for the Raiders because he’s someone they can build a franchise around. He seems to have the right leadership skills and motivational skills to lead a team. He’s high character, he’s got physical size. He’s got great arm strength. He’s indicated numerous times that he can bring the team back in critical situations,” Steinberg said.
“As a marketing proposition, Las Vegas is the hottest sports town in America… It’s a great environment to be in with supportive fans and businesses for sponsorships and endorsements.”
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Mendoza has already filed 12 trademark applications. Those filings include his name, “Fernando Mendoza,” “Mendoza,” “Flippin'” and “HE15MENDOZA,” intended to cover athletic apparel and merchandising.
“By choosing 12 different areas, it pretty much covered the field. And that means no one can go ahead and put together distinctive Mendoza [merchandise] without dealing with him,” Steinberg said.
