After dominating Illinois last week, plus the announcement that Oklahoma’s John Mateer would miss time due to a hand injury, Fernando Mendoza has moved atop the Heisman odds for most sportsbooks.
Of course, we are just four games into the season, with Mendoza being pulled early in three of those four games, so the sample size is small. Nonetheless, he leads the country with 14 passing touchdowns and trails only Ohio State’s Julian Sayin in completion percentage nationally.
Making this even more impressive
is that Mendoza got off to a slow start, completing just 58.1% of his passes for zero touchdowns in the opening week against Old Dominion. He looked uncomfortable, lacking both chemistry with his receivers and the confidence to stand in a pocket that wasn’t collapsing on him like it was at Cal.
Since then, he’s looked absolutely unstoppable. His lowest completion percentage in the last three games was 72% against Kennesaw State, and he’s completed over 90% of his passes in each of his last two games. Over those last two, he’s gone 40-43 for 1o touchdowns. That’s one in every four of his completions being a touchdown. And a lot of completions.
Actually winning the award – the first in program history – will require Mendoza to continue to perform at the highest level, however inevitable the dropoff from completing over 90% of his passes for five touchdowns against a ranked team. He’ll also likely need to lead Indiana to victory in one of Indiana’s two big matchups at Penn State and at Oregon, on top of needing to stay healthy.
So far though, there’s no real reason to think he can’t do that.
After losing Lee Beebe Jr. for the season, Indiana was able to plug in Khobie Martin for 12 carries, 107 yards, and two touchdowns against the Illini. While a lesser quarterback may have his accomplishments dwarfed by such a strong running game, Mendoza has been able to capitalize on the strength of the backfield to really light up defensive backfields.
The other key to Mendoza’s success has been the play of Omar Cooper Jr. and Elijah Sarratt, who both look like guys who could be playing on Sundays soon. Each have caught five touchdowns on the year, with Cooper doing so on 19 receptions versus Sarratt’s 24.
Then there’s E.J. Williams, and a pair of solid tight ends in Riley Nowakowski and Holden Staes, all of whom have touchdown receptions this year despite sharing targets with the aforementioned duo. This is why he’s been able to complete so many of his passes – there are simply too many targets for a defense to keep track of.
To top it off, he’s playing with house money. Nobody outside of Indiana truly believed Indiana would be in this position again this year, let alone with the Heisman frontrunner four weeks in. His backups, including his younger brother, have looked promising in his absence, and the running game is a handful on its own.
In all, Mendoza is a guy with a lot of weapons at his disposal – not counting his own elite talent – and virtually none of the pressure that accompanies being in the position he and his teammates find themselves in.
It’s a good time to be a Hoosier and a Hoosier fan.
