Silver And Black Pride
We’re at the halfway point of Silver and Black Pride’s Mendoza Mania series, breaking down the film on every game of Fernando Mendoza’s final College Football season at Indiana, diving into his eighth contest of the year with a matchup against UCLA.
This certainly wasn’t the No. 1 pick of the 2026 NFL draft’s best performance as a passer, completing 15 of 22 attempts (68.2 percent) for 168 yards and three touchdowns to one interception. However, it was far from a poor or even below-average outing, where the bad or negative throws were few and far between. Even the pick wasn’t his fault, as it came off a batted pass at the line of scrimmage on a quick game concept.
Where the Hoosiers really dominated on this afternoon was via the ground game, rushing for 262 yards, 5.6 ypc and four touchdowns as a team. The Las Vegas Raiders’ new quarterback got involved in the action, accounting for 45 yards and a score on five carries. Mendoza’s legs were alive and well in the passing attack, too, where another theme of the outing was his ability to create off-script plays and make accurate throws on the run.
We’ll start with a couple of runs from the quarterback, which are also a pair of examples of how he managed to create plays out of structure.
It’s third and long, and UCLA dives deep into the playbook with a simulated pressure. They come out with five defenders on the line of scrimmage, and the linebacker creeps up right before the snap for a strong-side blitz and line game with the other two pass-rushers on that side of the formation. Meanwhile, the left edge defender and the line of scrimmage backer over the center drop into coverage to fit into the Cover 3 look.
That takes away the three frontside reads in Indiana’s three-by-one formation, where the Bruins have five defenders to cover three receivers and are in the perfect coverage to take away this concept from the Hoosiers. So, Mendoza tucks the ball down and runs, breaking a couple of tackles and refusing to go down before picking up the conversion to keep the drive alive.
Now, the one knock on him here is that he never even looks at the backside of the read. This might have been a touchdown if he did because E.J. Williams, the single receiver at the top of the screen, beats press coverage and has a step on the cornerback while running a go route. Especially with the safety cheating toward the wide side of the field and occupied by the frontside seam route, Williams is open for a big play.
Also, the result of this play wouldn’t translate to the NFL. If that first defender doesn’t make the tackle short of the sticks, the second (or third) one will at the next level. That’s why Mendoza must go through all of his reads before taking off and running moving forward. So, there’s some room for...
