Feb. 3, 2026, 6:00 p.m. ET<\/p>\n
Not only are the Indiana Hoosiers<\/a> set to lose quarterback Fernando Mendoza to the NFL draft, but co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Chandler Whitmer is also headed to the NFL. After one season in Bloomington, Whitmer has been hired as the quarterbacks coach for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, per NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero.<\/p>\n Whitmer had three seasons of Division-I experience as a player at Cincinnati from 2012-2014 before beginning his coaching career at Ohio State as an offensive graduate assistant from 2019-2020. From there, he was hired by the Los Angeles Chargers as a quality control assistant, a position he held from 2021-2023.<\/p>\n The former Bearcat was then hired by the Atlanta Falcons as a pass game specialist before landing at Indiana<\/a> in 2025 as the co-offensive coordinator alongside Mike Shanahan.<\/p>\n Now, in what will be his fifth different coaching job in seven years, Whitmer is headed to Tampa Bay to coach the quarterbacks.<\/p>\n Under Whitmer’s guidance, Mendoza blossomed, refining his mechanics greatly on his way to winning the Heisman Trophy during each of their lone seasons with the Hoosiers. Indiana ranked third in the country in scoring and 17th in total offense.<\/p>\n Need a news break? Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield will now be Whitmer’s main priority, as the 2018 No. 1 pick struggled down the stretch of last season, leading to the firing of offensive coordinator Josh Grizzard.<\/p>\n Whitmer has a proven track record of elevating the offenses that he’s worked with, something that Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles hopes continues in Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n Contact\/Follow@College_Wire<\/a>\u00a0on X and@College_Wires<\/a>\u00a0on Threads. Like our page on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0to follow ongoing coverage of college sports news, notes, and opinions.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb. 3, 2026, 6:00 p.m. ET Not only are the Indiana Hoosiers set to lose quarterback Fernando Mendoza…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":728592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2077],"tags":[95878,211,7,6,102328,96940,95882,96861,96219,95930,96027,95893,98232,98165,98164,95896,96215,95906,95884,95883,704,250,2597,2596,95881],"class_list":["post-728591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa-bay-buccaneers","tag-accessfree","tag-buccaneers","tag-football","tag-nfl","tag-sstssportscollegecollege-football","tag-sstsncollege-football","tag-tagamerican-football","tag-tagbaker-mayfield","tag-tagbig-10-hub","tag-tagbig-ten-conference-football","tag-tagcollege-sports","tag-tagfacebook","tag-tagheisman-trophy","tag-tagindiana-hoosiers","tag-tagindiana-hoosiers-football","tag-tagnational-sports","tag-tagohio-state-buckeyes-football","tag-tagoverall-positive","tag-tagsports-coaching-training","tag-tagsports-news","tag-tampa-bay","tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers","tag-tampabay","tag-tampabaybuccaneers","tag-typestory"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728591","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=728591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/728592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=728591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=728591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=728591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}