Next weekend, we’ll learn a lot more about #22 Indiana and their starting quarterback Fernando Mendoza. IU will host #9 Illinois under the lights in a matchup that should have big College Football Playoff ramifications. Mendoza will have to contend with the Illini monster on the edge, Gabe Jacas, and that will be a specific storyline to keep an eye on.

Mendoza, who transferred in from Cal this offseason, is in the conversation for the top 15, maybe even top 10, of next April’s NFL Draft. Almost everybody who ranks draft prospects has him in the top 5 at the QB position.

In playing non-conference cream puffs Old Dominion, Kennesaw State and Indiana State, Mendoza did not stuff the stat sheet, and that is ok. While some might think that he should have padded his stats against this preseason slate (seriously, college football doesn’t have a preseason like the NFL, so scheduling like this is what a lot of programs do instead), it’s not his game.

Mendoza is not, never has been and won’t ever become a 400+ yards, 15+ yards-per-attempt in a single game kind of guy. He’s a bona fide football version of a true point guard.

Like a floor general on the hardwood, he distributes and gets others involved. That’s his game- being efficient, effective (he went 19-20 passing for 270 yards, 5 TDs, 0 INTs versus the Sycamores on Friday night) and making winning plays. He can make plays with both his arm and his legs.

He’s not a game manager, as that’s a different animal entirely, and honestly, an inherently condescending term.

Mendoza is guy that would be perfect for a NFL team that’s drafting somewhere in the late teens or early 20s, of the first round, because that’s a franchise which has a lot of pieces to work with already. He would not do well with a team that’s picking in the top five, because that’s a franchise in a major rebuild.

And right now, he might be in that range, and rising. Cade Klubnik will probably go ahead of Mendoza, but he’s stuck in neutral right now.

I would definitely take the Hoosiers signal caller over Drew Allar, a prospect that seems to be reversing a bit. It’s doubtful that Mendoza would go ahead of Klubnik, Garrett Nussmeier and LaNorris Sellers, but he should be the next signal caller off the board after that.

Given that, he’s earned a “Buy” rating for this week.

In the words of Abba

There was something in the air that nightThe stars were bright, Fernando