{"id":426093,"date":"2026-01-24T01:21:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T01:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/426093\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T01:21:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T01:21:07","slug":"fernando-mendoza-literally-breaks-records-with-jimmy-fallon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/426093\/","title":{"rendered":"Fernando Mendoza Literally Breaks Records with Jimmy Fallon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> NEED TO KNOW<br \/>\nIndiana Hoosiers quarterback Fernando Mendoza appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Jan. 22 to celebrate his team&#8217;s national championship winFallon challenged Mendoza, who broke several records in the Rose Bowl Game and for the Hoosiers, to break literal records for a segmentMendoza, who announced his declaration for the 2026 NFL Draft on Jan. 23, broke eight of the ten records Fallon threw for him<\/p>\n<p id=\"mntl-sc-block_2-0\" class=\"comp mntl-sc-block mntl-sc-block-html\"> <a href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/fernando-mendoza-reveals-his-stance-having-girlfriend-while-playing-college-football-11890506\" data-component=\"link\" data-source=\"inlineLink\" data-type=\"internalLink\" data-ordinal=\"1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Fernando Mendoza<\/a> just can&#8217;t stop breaking records.\n<\/p>\n<p id=\"mntl-sc-block_4-0\" class=\"comp mntl-sc-block mntl-sc-block-html\"> The Indiana Hoosiers quarterback, 22, appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Thursday, Jan. 22 after leading his team to a national championship just days before, where he and the late night host literally broke records.\n<\/p>\n<p id=\"mntl-sc-block_6-0\" class=\"comp mntl-sc-block mntl-sc-block-html\"> <a href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/tag\/jimmy-fallon\/\" data-component=\"link\" data-source=\"inlineLink\" data-type=\"internalLink\" data-ordinal=\"1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jimmy Fallon<\/a> congratulated Mendoza on the title to kick off the segment and showed viewers the touchdown that secured the Hoosiers their victory. The quarterback then revealed that he felt &#8220;like a human pinball machine&#8221; scoring the points.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p id=\"mntl-sc-block_10-0\" class=\"comp mntl-sc-block mntl-sc-block-html\"> Then, Fallon, 51, challenged Mendoza to break more records \u2014 literal ones.\n<\/p>\n<p id=\"mntl-sc-block_12-0\" class=\"comp mntl-sc-block mntl-sc-block-html\"> Mendoza was up for the challenge and impressively hit eight of the ten records Fallon threw into the air. Fallon accidentally threw one behind himself, but that fortunately didn&#8217;t count toward Mendoza&#8217;s score.<\/p>\n<p id=\"mntl-sc-block_16-0\" class=\"comp mntl-sc-block mntl-sc-block-html\"> In addition to the eight literal records he broke on television, Mendoza set the Rose Bowl Game record for completion percentage and passer rating, and broke Kellen Lewis&#8217; single-season record for most touchdowns in a year against Ohio State, per the <a href=\"https:\/\/iuhoosiers.com\/sports\/football\/roster\/fernando-mendoza\/20961\" data-component=\"link\" data-source=\"inlineLink\" data-type=\"externalLink\" data-ordinal=\"1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Hoosiers<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<p id=\"mntl-sc-block_18-0\" class=\"comp mntl-sc-block mntl-sc-block-html\"> Following his appearance on Fallon, Mendoza announced he&#8217;s officially declaring for the 2026 NFL Draft in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reels\/DT2jcuRAJud\/\" data-component=\"link\" data-source=\"inlineLink\" data-type=\"externalLink\" data-ordinal=\"1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">video<\/a> on social media.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p id=\"mntl-sc-block_22-0\" class=\"comp mntl-sc-block mntl-sc-block-html\"> &#8220;Coming to Indiana was a leap of faith,&#8221; Mendoza said in a voiceover as highlights from his college career played in the clip.\n<\/p>\n<p id=\"mntl-sc-block_24-0\" class=\"comp mntl-sc-block mntl-sc-block-html\"> Mendoza said that leap of faith led him to a national championship and to where he is now, ready to declare for the draft.\n<\/p>\n<p id=\"mntl-sc-block_28-0\" class=\"comp mntl-sc-block mntl-sc-block-html\"> Mendoza thanked his family \u2014 whom he shared an emotional viral moment with after the Hoosiers won the championship \u2014 as well as the teammates that &#8220;pushed&#8221; him and the coaches who &#8220;took a chance on&#8221; him.\n<\/p>\n<p id=\"mntl-sc-block_30-0\" class=\"comp mntl-sc-block mntl-sc-block-html\"> &#8220;It is only with your support and the glory of God that I am here today,&#8221; he said.\n<\/p>\n<p id=\"mntl-sc-block_32-0\" class=\"comp mntl-sc-block mntl-sc-block-html\"> Never miss a story \u2014 sign up for<a href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/people-news-daily-newsletter-sign-up-8692701\" data-component=\"link\" data-source=\"inlineLink\" data-type=\"internalLink\" data-ordinal=\"1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> PEOPLE&#8217;s free daily newsletter<\/a> to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer\u200b\u200b, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.\n<\/p>\n<p id=\"mntl-sc-block_34-0\" class=\"comp mntl-sc-block mntl-sc-block-html\"> Mendoza captioned the video, &#8220;Let\u2019s get to work. I\u2019m humbled to announce that I am officially declaring for the 2026 NFL Draft,&#8221; and received support in the comments from fans and teammates, like Indiana offensive tackle Carter Smith, who wrote, &#8220;Go get it done, like you always have\ud83e\udd1e\ud83c\udffc.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEED TO KNOW Indiana Hoosiers quarterback Fernando Mendoza appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Jan.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426094,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-426093","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}