“I think Fernando (Mendoza)’s body of work is more impressive. He did it longer, he did it on two different teams, and he’s 16-0 and played very good in crunch time,” Gruden said. “You watch the Oregon film, two deep balls against Ohio State, very impressive. His toughness I think sets him apart.”<\/p>\n
College career comparison<\/p>\n
Between California and Indiana, Mendoza spent the better part of the last three seasons as a starting quarterback. Mendoza finished his time at California with 4,712 yards, 30 touchdowns and 16 interceptions. He threw for 3,535 yards, 41 touchdowns and six interceptions in his Heisman Trophy-winning season at Indiana.<\/p>\n
Simpson sat behind Bryce Young and Jalen Milroe for three seasons before earning the starting job at Alabama in 2025. In his lone season as the Crimson Tide’s starter, Simpson threw for 3,567 yards, 28 touchdowns and five interceptions.<\/p>\n
Rose Bowl meeting![\"Ty](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/01knj6cpqws8zzv7371j.jpg\" "\\"Ty")
<\/p>\n
Alabama Crimson Tide quarterback Ty Simpson (15) passes against the Indiana Hoosiers in the first half of the 2026 Rose Bowl | Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images<\/p>\n
No. 1 seed Indiana defeated No. 9 seed Alabama 38-3 in the Rose Bowl on its quest to win the 2026 College Football Playoff National Championship. Mendoza finished the game 14-of-16 passing for 192 yards and three touchdowns. Simpson finished 12-of-16 for 67 yards passing and did not play in the second half.<\/p>\n
“They did not have a running game this year at Alabama, probably the worst run game in the history of Alabama football. Their offensive line, even though (Kadyn) Proctor’s going to be a first-round pick at left tackle, they really struggled protecting the passer,” Gruden said about Simpson and Alabama. <\/p>\n
“To Dave (Portnoy)’s point, (Ty) Simpson was beat up, but when you watch Fernando (Mendoza) and Simpson go head to head in that Rose Bowl, Indiana kicked their butt, and Simpson got benched because he was hurt.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2026 NFL draft will take place from April 23 to April 25 adjacent to Acrisure Stadium in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,593,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-590646","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}