\u201cIt\u2019s such an honor,\u201d Mendoza says. \u201cWinning the Heisman Trophy and the national championship was great. The Manning Award is the cherry on top of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
He describes his time at the Manning camp — during which he got to interact with Archie, Peyton, Eli and Cooper Manning — \u201cone of the greatest experiences of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Archie Manning, a standout quarterback at Ole Miss and then for 14 years in the NFL, calls Mendoza an \u201coutstanding winner.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the playoffs, Mendoza was near-perfect against Alabama and Oregon, going a combined 31-for-36 for 369 yards, eight touchdowns, and no interceptions. He also rushed for 44 yards.<\/p>\n
Mendoza wasn\u2019t as statistically dominant against Miami (16-for-27, 186 yards, one rushing touchdown), reflective of the Hurricanes\u2019 NFL-caliber talent and game plan that centered on hitting him hard and often until he broke.<\/p>\n
Mendoza didn\u2019t break, but broke Miami with a play-for-the-ages fourth-quarter touchdown run that, like receiver Omar Cooper Jr.\u2019s game-winning, back-of-the-end zone touchdown catch at Penn State, will remain forever etched in Hoosier lore.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a great group of quarterbacks in college football this year,\u201d Archie Manning says, \u201cand I\u2019d like to tell you this was (a close vote), but it wasn\u2019t. Fernando had one of the great seasons that any collegiate quarterback has ever had. It was climaxed by a great national championship win, undefeated season, and the Heisman Trophy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under head coach Curt Cignetti, offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan and quarterbacks coach Chandler Whitmer this season, Mendoza completed 72.0 percent of his passes for a program-record 41 touchdowns and six interceptions. He also rushed for seven touchdowns.<\/p>\n
Mendoza credits advice from Peyton Manning on an off-season film work plan as the foundation for preparation that Cignetti has called the best he\u2019s ever seen.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was what Peyton\u2019s structure was off the field — how he looked at all the interceptions he threw, and almost threw, how he looked at all the touchdowns he threw, and almost threw,\u201d Mendoza says. \u201cI took that directly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m known as an efficient passer, but early in my career, I wasn\u2019t. I had a huge turnover problem with interceptions and fumbles. That was a great turning point in finding that solution.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mendoza says he continues to learn from the Mannings. He recently watched an Eli Manning podcast that focused on how he transitioned into the NFL.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe talked about some of the troubles he had that led him to be a Super Bowl-winning quarterback (for the New York Giants).\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s such an honor,\u201d Mendoza says. \u201cWinning the Heisman Trophy and the national championship was great. The Manning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":728393,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2059],"tags":[2005,7,2004,392,2381,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-728392","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-indianapolis-colts","8":"tag-colts","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-indianapolis","11":"tag-indianapolis-colts","12":"tag-indianapoliscolts","13":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116011511657773152","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728392","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=728392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/728393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=728392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=728392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=728392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}