Fernando Mendoza is blazing a historic trail. As starting quarterback for Indiana University, he’s led the Hoosiers to their first 12-0 season, turning Bloomington from a hoops town to a hotbed of football passion.
He could be Indiana University’s first winner of the Heisman Trophy, praised by pundits and cheered on by tens of thousands of his classmates and alums screaming “HeisMendoza!” This weekend he hopes to take IU to its first Big Ten Championship since 1967, capping an extraordinary year since he first put on a Hoosiers’ jersey, taking on traditional powerhouse and defending national champion Ohio State.
The NFL draft talk has already started with speculation that he could be the No. 1 pick. But after his most dramatic successes, Mendoza tends to reflect on the past, not a bright-but-uncertain future. Like many athletes around the country, one of his most special relationships is with his high school coach.
STREAMING NOW: QB Fernando Mendoza is leading a Hoosier football revival. Upgrade to watch the full report.
“He texted me literally right after the Penn State game,” Dave Dunn, football head coach at Christopher Columbus High School in Miami, told CNN, referring to Indiana’s miraculous last-gasp win in Happy Valley.
Mendoza and the Hoosiers were down by four points with just 1:31 left to play when the ball was snapped at their 13-yard line. Seven plays later, after several fingertip catches on the sidelines, Mendoza had defensive players hurtling toward him when he threw the ball to the end zone. It was pulled out of the air by wide receiver Omar Cooper Jr., who got his foot down just inside the line, putting the Hoosiers ahead for good in the final seconds.
The play had Fox Sports play-by-plan man Gus Johnson screaming like a madman, even as it silenced the stunned Penn State crowd.
Dunn heard the game on Penn State radio, pacing around a hotel parking lot for the final minutes, not wanting to miss the end while checking in. Once in his room and with a chance to see highlights, he texted congratulations to Mendoza, who replied, “Yes sir! That was a close (one).”
“The grit you showed on the final drive was epic,” Dunn wrote back, to which Mendoza said, “It was like Deerfield, but a bit louder.”
“This could be the Heisman defining moment (and) he’s going to compare it to a (high school) game,” Dunn said of the comment, saying Mendoza’s reaction made him laugh.
Quarterback Fernando Mendoza is making history at Indiana University with a perfect season. He also has a real shot at the Heisman Trophy. CNN’s Brynn Gingras travels to his old high school in Miami to learn what makes this player so special. Stream the full story on the CNN app.
That Deerfield game was in Mendoza’s senior year, played during the pandemic in front of just 200 or so family members, when his team was down as time was running out and when Mendoza had — as at Penn State — hurt his team with a brutal interception.
Dunn remembers it, too.
“I said, ‘Hey, you screwed this up. You got to fix it, there’s nothing else to be said,’” he told CNN.
“He leads us all the way down the field, scores a touchdown, basically with about the same amount of time left on the clock to win it.”
And that was clearly on Mendoza’s mind when he texted Dunn, the man he still calls “Coach.” For Dunn, it showed the young man “still reveres his high school career.”
Dunn said he has immense pride in how Mendoza has grown and succeeded since leaving high school. He also enjoys keeping an eye on younger brother Alberto Mendoza, who now backs up his brother at Indiana the same way he once did for the Columbus Explorers.
Dunn was the head coach and position coach for the brothers and called the plays on the field. Columbus won its first state championship with Fernando as QB, and then three more with him or his brother leading the offense.
The boys would spend every lunchtime they could with Dunn, always talking football, the coach said. But he won’t take credit for Mendoza’s fantastic season.
“All the success he’s had, he’s earned on his own,” he said. “I’d like to think that we put good players around him and put him in a pretty good system, which helped him showcase his talents. But at the end of the day, it’s his individual talent and drive that has really led him to the success he’s had,” Dunn added of the young talent he praises as a “football nerd.”
That drive was evident at their first meeting when a 15-year-old Mendoza arrived ready with a notebook and pen, something that Dunn expects from college athletes but found surprising with such a young player.
“At an early age, he kind of modeled himself after Tom Brady,” Dunn said, remembering coverage of Brady that would show all the notes he took on every aspect of the game. “I think that’s where he got the idea from, because he’s always been a big Tom Brady fan, and thought ‘If it’s good enough for Tom Brady, then it’s good enough for me.’”
Both Mendoza brothers return often to Columbus, a private Catholic school to the west of Miami.
With other students and alums running the routes, Dunn will snap the ball and then watch how his proteges are doing now.
And Fernando Mendoza, the player who went from a 15-year-old full of questions to a 22-year-old Heisman candidate, now wants to share his own thoughts.
“He called me during their bye week, and he was giving me stuff, ‘Coach, I think this would work for you guys this week. I think you should run this,’” Dunn said.
Mendoza also draws plays on the board in Dunn’s office, where they spent so many lunch times discussing the game.
“We still have those conversations, which is awesome,” Dunn said. And despite adding years, miles and experiences between them, they still don’t really talk about anything but football.
The only beef between them, it seems, is literal beef.
After coaching Columbus to the state championships, Dunn had a hot dog named after him at the Arbetter dog diner four blocks from school. Now, across the street from the IU campus, the BuffaLouie’s sports bar has partnered with the brothers to create the Mendoza Bros. Burger. It’s like a Cuban sandwich as a burger, honoring their roots, and raises funds and awareness for the Multiple Sclerosis Society, inspired by their mother who has MS.
And the brothers like to rib their old coach about it.
“They’re like, ‘Dude, the Mendoza burger is so much better than the Dunn dog,” he said. “That’s why I got to get to Bloomington to try it.”
Brynn Gingras reported from Miami and Bloomington, Indiana, and Rachel Clarke wrote in Atlanta.