INDIANAPOLIS (KTNV) \u2014 Fernando Mendoza understands the projection. He also understands the process.<\/p>\n
The Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback confirmed Friday at the NFL scouting combine that he had a formal interview with the Las Vegas Raiders, the team holding the No. 1 overall pick in April\u2019s draft.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was lucky enough to have a formal interview with the Las Vegas Raiders,\u201d Mendoza said.<\/p>\n
WATCH | Taylor Rocha has more on his talk with Raiders leadership:<\/p>\n
Fernando Mendoza Meets With Raiders at NFL Combine as Projected No. 1 Pick<\/p>\n
The meeting included Raiders coach Klint Kubiak, general manager John Spytek, and a brief phone conversation with minority owner Tom Brady.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was able to say a brief hi on the phone to Brady. And so that was very special to me,\u201d Mendoza said. \u201cI look forward to meet him in person, hopefully one day, and learning from him.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the introduction, Mendoza said the tone shifted quickly from pleasantries to evaluation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re very football savvy,\u201d he said. \u201cThey taught me the play, and they had their whole progression of how they teach the quarterbacks the play\u2026 I\u2019m a very Type A guy, and they had all the details of each play\u2026 and that\u2019s something that I really enjoy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mendoza, who led Indiana to a national championship, said the attention to detail has been forged through experience \u2014 including narrow losses earlier in his college career.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether it was 49 to 50 to USC and Caleb Williams two years ago\u2026 whether it was 38-39 to Cam Ward and the Miami Hurricanes\u2026 I believe a lot of that experience of failing coming up so short has helped me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Those setbacks, Mendoza said, reinforced his philosophy on leadership.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you wanna lead, you first gotta play well\u2026 and then second, it\u2019s having the respect of your teammates through work ethic, through your leadership, through your tenacity, the way you respond to mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once ranked outside the top 100 quarterbacks in his high school class, Mendoza now stands at the podium as the projected No. 1 overall pick. Still, he is careful not to assume anything.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now I\u2019m unemployed. I have no job, so this is my job interview right now,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m just trying to do everything to hopefully get employed on April 23rd.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mendoza did not throw at the combine and will instead work out at Indiana\u2019s pro day on April 1.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know they have the prospective number one pick, but anything can happen in the draft,\u201d he said. \u201cWhatever team drafts me, I\u2019m going to give everything I got to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The NFL draft begins April 23 in Pittsburgh. Until then, Mendoza\u2019s evaluation \u2014 and the Raiders\u2019 decision \u2014 remains ongoing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INDIANAPOLIS (KTNV) \u2014 Fernando Mendoza understands the projection. He also understands the process. The Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback confirmed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":781741,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2065],"tags":[5684,5685,7,1744,393,5690,20218,2455,2454,6,525,20219,266,18678,20220],"class_list":["post-781740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-las-vegas-raiders","tag-13-action-news","tag-abc-13","tag-football","tag-las-vegas","tag-las-vegas-raiders","tag-las-vegas-sports","tag-las-vegas-sports-teams","tag-lasvegas","tag-lasvegasraiders","tag-nfl","tag-raiders","tag-sports-in-vegas","tag-sports-news","tag-sports-stories","tag-vegas-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116147269362646070","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781740","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=781740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/781741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=781740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=781740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=781740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}