MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. \u2014 Las Vegas Raiders owner Mark Davis, minority owner Tom Brady and general manager John Spytek stood on the sidelines before the College Football Playoff National Championship in Miami, watching the man they hope will save their franchise.<\/p>\n
Miracles are nothing new for Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza, but turning the Raiders into a Super Bowl champion would rank right up there with the improbable season he just authored with the Hoosiers.<\/p>\n
Mendoza took the losingest college football program in Division I history \u2014 one that hadn\u2019t won a bowl game since 1991, hadn\u2019t won the Big Ten since 1967, had never won a Rose Bowl, had never produced a Heisman Trophy winner and had never won a national championship \u2014 and quarterbacked the most unlikely clean sweep in college sports history.<\/p>\n
It culminated Monday night with Indiana completing a perfect 16-0 season and a 27-21 win over Miami in the College Football Playoff National Championship.<\/p>\n
In a season filled with highlight plays, Mendoza saved his best for when it mattered most. With Indiana clinging to a three-point lead and about nine minutes left in the fourth quarter, the Hoosiers appeared poised to kick a field goal on fourth-and-four from the Miami 12-yard line. Indiana coach Curt Cignetti called a timeout and did what he had done all season \u2014 put the game, and the season, in Mendoza\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n
Taking the snap from the shotgun and drifting back to the 20-yard line, Mendoza scrambled, broke a handful of tackles and dove into the end zone for a touchdown that will be remembered in Bloomington forever.<\/p>\n
After the game, Mendoza embraced his parents, Fernando Mendoza Sr. and Elsa Mendoza, who the country has come to know and love over the course of this season. Elsa has lived with multiple sclerosis for 15 years and has served as the biggest inspiration in her son\u2019s life.<\/p>\n
She smiled as she recalled what went through her mind on that touchdown run.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was like, \u2018You\u2019re a quarterback, not a running back,\u2019\u201d Elsa told The Sporting Tribune. \u201cWhat are you doing? But you know what he says \u2014 he\u2019ll do anything to get his team the touchdown. And he did. But I\u2019ll have a couple of words with him when we get home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mendoza\u2019s storybook season unfolded at the same time another Raiders season unraveled. While Mendoza was winning the Heisman Trophy, the Raiders were finishing an NFL-worst 3-14 season.<\/p>\n
They had gone 4-13 the year before, then hired Pete Carroll \u2014 one of only three head coaches to win both a Super Bowl and a national championship \u2014 and signed quarterback Geno Smith, a two-time Pro Bowler and NFL Comeback Player of the Year. Somehow, they finished with an even worse record and are once again looking for a new coach and quarterback just one year later.<\/p>\n
The Raiders haven\u2019t just been bad the past two seasons. They have finished above .500 and reached the playoffs only twice since losing the Super Bowl nearly 25 years ago. They haven\u2019t won the division or a playoff game in that span and haven\u2019t won a Super Bowl since 1983.<\/p>\n
This is a franchise desperate for a franchise-altering draft pick \u2014 and a quarterback capable of leading it back to relevance.<\/p>\n
While the Raiders continue searching for a new head coach, they don\u2019t need to look any further for their quarterback. The Raiders\u2019 contingent of Davis, Brady and Spytek knew it was Mendoza before they landed in Miami. They know it\u2019s Mendoza as they head back to Las Vegas. And they\u2019ll continue the familiar song and dance through the NFL Combine and the offseason until they officially select Mendoza with the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL draft three months from now.<\/p>\n
Brady refused to speak with the media Monday, but he made his feelings about Mendoza clear earlier this season on the Fox NFL Sunday pregame show.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love everything about his game,\u201d Brady said. \u201cCertainly, his leadership is what stands out to me. It\u2019s his relatability to his teammates, and he\u2019s overcome a lot in his career. He\u2019s a Miami kid who went to Cal and Indiana. He went to a program that hadn\u2019t won anything in forever, and what he\u2019s done this season is so impressive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several NFL scouts in attendance Monday echoed Brady\u2019s sentiments. They praised Mendoza\u2019s decisiveness, his lack of hesitation or double-clutching, and how easy he was to evaluate running Indiana\u2019s pro-style offense against NFL-caliber prospects. In their eyes, he was the clear choice to be the top pick in this year\u2019s draft.<\/p>\n
When Mendoza was asked before the game about the possibility of being selected by the Raiders, he answered in true Mendoza fashion.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, that\u2019s a fantastic question,\u201d he said with a smile. \u201cI would love to answer that. However, I don\u2019t think it would be right by my teammates to focus on the future. I\u2019m giving all my focus to the present right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mendoza practices those non-answers like he prepares for defensive coverages. During his pregame press conference, a public relations representative informed reporters a transcript would be provided afterward and Mendoza requested one as well.<\/p>\n
He knows he can sound robotic at times, but that\u2019s only because he cares. Anyone who\u2019s watched a Geno Smith press conference with the Raiders can appreciate that.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people say, \u2018Fernando, you talk like ChatGPT and AI,\u2019\u201d Mendoza said. \u201cSo I was like, \u2018Hey, I\u2019ve got to fix my speaking.\u2019 I took public speaking courses and watched a lot of YouTube videos. From day one, I was like, \u2018Stats say I won\u2019t make the NFL and probably won\u2019t even play at Berkeley.\u2019 I was wrong, thankfully, thank God. So I just wanted to maximize every opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
That includes maintaining an active LinkedIn profile \u2014 still updated like a college senior preparing for the job market. His \u201cAbout\u201d section reads like a resume ready to be emailed on demand.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard not to love Mendoza for what he does on the field. It\u2019s even harder once you get to know him off it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no one like him,\u201d Indiana center Pat Coogan said. \u201cThe man he was raised to be, the athlete he is, the work he puts in \u2014 it all encapsulates who he is. He\u2019s pretty f—ing amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. \u2014 Las Vegas Raiders owner Mark Davis, minority owner Tom Brady and general manager John…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":691227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2065],"tags":[3619,7,4725,1744,393,2455,2454,88,6,525,23839],"class_list":{"0":"post-691226","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-las-vegas-raiders","8":"tag-fernando-mendoza","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-indiana-hoosiers","11":"tag-las-vegas","12":"tag-las-vegas-raiders","13":"tag-lasvegas","14":"tag-lasvegasraiders","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-raiders","18":"tag-tst-las-vegas"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115927651213216467","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=691226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/691227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=691226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=691226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=691226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}