Silver And Black Pride
Now that it’s June and we have some downtime before training camp, Silver and Black Pride is starting a new series, focusing on film breakdowns for each of the Las Vegas Raiders’ No. 1 pick of the 2026 NFL draft, Fernando Mendoza’s games from his final College Football season at Indiana. Not only will this series give us a comprehensive view of the Heisman Trophy winner’s strengths and weaknesses, but it will also allow us to see how he progressed throughout the season.
First up is a Week 1 matchup against Old Dominion, where the eventual National Champions and Mendoza certainly weren’t at their best. It was pretty clear that the Cal transfer was still getting used to a new system and teammates, as the Hoosiers won 27-14, but that was tied for their second-lowest point total of the season while the quarterback completed just 18 of 33 passes (54.5 percent) for 193 yards and no passing touchdowns. He did have one score on the ground, though.
So, let’s flip on the tape and break down a few notable passes.
This is a good example of Mendoza getting used to working in a new offense with a new set of teammates.
Indiana is running a dagger concept on the front side of the play call (top of the screen), where the goal is for the slot receiver to clear out the middle of the field for the dig route from the outside receiver. With Old Dominion showing Cover 4 but rotating to Cover 3 post-snap, Mendoza can hit the dig for a big gain, especially the linebacker/hook-to-curl defender biting hard against the play-action fake. However, he turns it down and works the backside of the read.
That’s where the Hoosiers have a high-low concept, with the tight end (No. 37, Riley Nowakowski) running a 10-yard out and the running back releasing into the flat. Mendoza has Nowakowski open for a first down if he throws on time to take advantage of that window or triangle between the linebacker, safety and corner.
However, he’s a little late and clearly not on the same page as the tight end, expecting the tight end to sit in the window rather than continuing toward the sideline. So, there’s some shared blame for the incompletion, but the quarterback had a couple of missed opportunities on this one.
One of the biggest differences in Mendoza’s fundamentals from Cal to Indiana was with his footwork in the pocket, but that didn’t happen overnight. It took a lot of work with the Hoosiers’ head coach, Curt Cignetti, and the issue popped up a few times in the season opener.
Here, he has a wide-open seam route against a fire zone from the Monarchs, but the ball sails and Mendoza misses an opportunity for a big play. The reason is that he gets lazy on his dropback, opting to hop backwards instead of getting his body turned so that he can get his front shoulder and foot pointed at...
