On Monday night, Fernando Mendoza will take the field at Hard Rock Stadium, just a few miles from his childhood home, with the hopes of leading Indiana to its first national championship in program history.
But in an alternate universe, there’s a scenario where Mendoza — a former two-star recruit who was ranked 140th among quarterbacks in the Class of 2022 — might be suiting up for his hometown Hurricanes.
“He wanted to go to Miami in the worst way,” said Dave Dunn, who coached Mendoza at Columbus High, located about five miles from Miami’s campus. “He went there for all their camps and stuff like that, and they kind of said, ‘Well, we’ll let you know if we feel that you could walk on here.’ And we never heard back.”
Miami wasn’t alone. Despite playing for a nationally ranked high school team and earning All-Dade County honors as a junior, Mendoza had a hard time getting programs to give him a legitimate look. Cal was his only power-conference offer, and even then, the Golden Bears didn’t come in until about a week before the February signing day.
Fernando Mendoza grew up less than a mile from the University of Miami, and now gets to face his hometown team in the national championship game on Monday.
Here’s Fernando being interviewed during a football camp with the Hurricanes during his sophomore year of high school.… pic.twitter.com/sU8xhgZqB7
— Colin McMahon (@ColinMcMahon31) January 15, 2026
The lack of attention can be attributed in part to the COVID-19 pandemic since no college coaches saw Mendoza play live during his junior season in 2020.
The other issue was his mechanics. “Awkwardly athletic,” is how his private trainer, Danny Hernandez, described it.
“This is no longer the days of where a guy like Philip Rivers could get recruited,” Hernandez said. “Philip Rivers has a very funky throwing motion, but it was just about the bottom line. Even though it looked a little ugly, a little different, coaches didn’t get caught up in that because he was getting the job done.
“I think now, coaches are a lot more savvy as to what a mechanically sound throw looks like and are a lot more savvy as to understanding what great body mechanics is and good posture and what an aesthetically pleasing throw looks like. So because of all of those things, Fernando was lacking that a little early in his recruitment process.”
Still, Dunn believes things could have — maybe even would have — gone differently had Mario Cristobal’s staff been in charge of the Hurricanes at the time. Dunn has known Cristobal, who played offensive line with Fernando Mendoza Sr. at Columbus High, since the 1990s. Miami offensive line coach Alex Mirabal was also a member of that O-line and is among Dunn’s closest friends, the two chatting about three times a week on their 4:30 a.m. car rides into work.
“The hardest thing was getting people to listen to my opinion,” Dunn said. “(Cristobal) and I are close enough that he would have sat down, and I think (Mendoza) would have been a Hurricane if he was the head coach, in my opinion.”
Dunn can’t say whether or not Mendoza would have taken a walk-on spot at Miami had Manny Diaz and his staff even offered one. Alabama and Nick Saban did offer him an opportunity, with now-UAB coach Alex Mortensen telling Dunn at the time that Mendoza was better than two other quarterbacks on the roster — including one on scholarship — but that the Crimson Tide weren’t going to be adding another scholarship QB. Instead, Mendoza committed to Yale in August 2021 and was set on playing football and receiving an Ivy League education. Only a Power 4 scholarship offer, which Cal eventually gave him, could change his mind.
“It kind of validated my belief,” Dunn said of the Golden Bears entering Mendoza’s recruitment. “I would tell people, ‘He’s going to be a great quarterback for you.’”
Dunn said defensive coaches often told him they couldn’t understand why their school wasn’t more interested.
“I overheard a conversation between two coaches at the Miami 7-on-7 tournament we were playing in. It was from another Division I school, and they didn’t know who I was and I was standing by them and it was their defensive staff and they go, ‘Hey, there’s the Mendoza kid, and that’s his younger brother over there.’ They go, ‘He was on campus yesterday,’ and the one defensive guy goes, ‘Yeah, I guarantee you we’ll screw this one up.’ That’s exactly what he said.”
Miami was interested in Mendoza when he entered the transfer portal after last season, but he chose Indiana to be with his younger brother, Alberto, a redshirt freshman quarterback, and to make travel easier on their parents. Elsa, Mendoza’s mother, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis nearly 20 years ago, and making Saturdays as easy as possible for her was a priority. Plus, it didn’t hurt that he gelled with Indiana coach Curt Cignetti and would be able to spend every day with Alberto along the way.
“If Alberto was not at Indiana, I don’t think Fernando goes there,” Dunn said. “That’s my opinion. That was a big part of it.”
So on Monday night, Mendoza will trot out in crimson and cream instead of green and orange and do everything he can to beat his favorite childhood team, quarterbacked now by Georgia transfer Carson Beck.
The Hoosiers are favored to win, and it all starts with their quarterback.
In the end, everything worked out for the best.
“That Miami (quarterback) room would probably have been so loaded that I’m not sure if Fernando would have had that opportunity even if he got picked up on the team,” Hernandez said. “I don’t know if he would have had that opportunity to be thrown in those real, live reps (like he was at Cal) to really show truly how special he is.
“It worked out, the path that he ended up taking. He’s probably better off that Cristobal wasn’t there.”