Fernando Mendoza isn’t hunting legacy. He’s holding onto the moment that carried Indiana here.
As the Hoosiers step into the Peach Bowl with a place in the College Football Playoff National Championship at stake, Mendoza’s tone has remained strikingly unchanged. Calm. Intentional. Almost stubbornly resistant to the noise that inevitably follows a season like this one.
“I want to make sure my focus is immersed in this moment right now for the Peach Bowl,” Mendoza said this week, a line that neatly captures the way Indiana’s Heisman winner has navigated everything that’s followed him since December.
That includes the award itself. The attention. The questions. The expectations. Mendoza doesn’t pretend they don’t exist. He just refuses to live in them. Instead, he lives in process.
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Indiana’s path here has already rewritten plenty of assumptions, starting with its win over the Oregon Ducks, a result that shocked much of the sport. Yet Mendoza doesn’t speak about that game as proof of arrival. If anything, he frames it as reinforcement of Indiana’s posture.
“Oregon is a fantastic team. They’re a national powerhouse,” Mendoza said. “Although we’ve beat Oregon, it shows that we are still the underdogs.”
That underdog identity isn’t branding. It’s operational. Mendoza sees a neutral site, elite talent across the field, and a game that will be decided by focus and margins.
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“It’s college football. Small margins,” he said. “We have to have extreme intentionality to every single play.”
That intentionality starts well before kickoff. Mendoza credited the long layoff between the Big Ten Championship and the postseason for giving him space to reset, especially after the Heisman spotlight intensified.
“There was a lot of media attention especially after the Heisman,” he said. “However, really stepping back and keeping to my process and keeping to my routine…and also not really having social media.”
His phone is stripped down to LinkedIn and YouTube. Praise and criticism stay outside the building.
“I’m not online reading, ‘Fernando is great, Fernando sucks,’” Mendoza said. “I’m listening to what my quarterback coach says.”
The routine is methodical. Eight-plus hours of sleep. Nutrition. Film study. Repetition. No superstition. No shortcuts.
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“When I step on that field, I am confident,” he said. “I know that my preparation is unmatched.”
That confidence is shared, particularly up front. Mendoza has repeatedly pointed to his offensive line as the engine of Indiana’s offense, calling them the unsung heroes of the run that’s brought the Hoosiers here. Pat Coogan’s Rose Bowl MVP recognition, he said, mattered deeply.
“They’re the reason our offense is good,” Mendoza said. “Plain as it is.”
And then there’s the crowd.
Mendoza has already seen what Hoosier Nation can do to a neutral site, describing earlier postseason games that felt like home. Tonight in Atlanta, that prediction has again materialized. One hour before kickoff at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, I’d say at least 75 percent of the crowd is dressed in Indiana red and cream, a takeover that’s been impossible to miss from the press box.
“It’s essentially having the 12th player on the field,” Mendoza said previously of Indiana’s fans. The noise, the color, the energy…all of it tilts the environment.
Still, Mendoza is quick to remind everyone what this trip is not.
“This is a business trip,” he said. “We’re here for one reason only.”
That reason now stands one win away from the national championship. Indiana has belief. It has momentum. It has a Heisman Trophy winner at quarterback who refuses to let the moment outrun the work.
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