Fernando Mendoza versus Illinois, Part IV of Las Vegas Raiders’ Mendoza Mania

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Indiana's Fernando Mendoza (15) during the Indiana versus Illinois football game at Memorial Stadium on Saturday, Sept. 20, 2025 | Rich Janzaruk/Herald-Times / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

We’re diving into Fernando Mendoza’s first Big Ten conference game in Part IV of Silver and Black Pride’s Mendoza Mania, breaking down the film on every game from the No. 1 pick of the 2026 NFL draft’s/new Las Vegas Raiders franchise quarterback’s final season at Indiana.

This Week 4 matchup was supposed to pit two up-and-coming Big Ten programs against each other, but it didn’t live up to the hype with the Hoosiers cruising to a 63-10 victory. A big reason for that is this was one of the Heisman Trophy winner’s most efficient performances of the season, completing 21 of 23 passing attempts (91.3 percent) for 267 yards and five touchdowns with no interceptions.

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Additionally, this was one of the most boring games Mendoza had last year, but in a good way. While he didn’t have many impressive throws down the field, he also didn’t make many mistakes and operated Indiana’s offense at a high level. That meant a lot of RPOs and short passes, but the quarterback did a good job dinking and dunking his way into a 63-point outing.

With only two incompletions in the contest, there weren’t many negative plays from Mendoza. But let’s get one rep that has some room for improvement out of the way before diving into the highlights.

More than anything, I think this is a decision he’d want back. The defense comes out in a single-high look with the safety playing very deep, while both corners have inside leverage, but one is in press coverage while the other plays off the line of scrimmage. That’s a pretty good indication they’re playing man, and Illinois stays in Cover 1 post-snap.

The issue is that Mendoza appears to predetermine this throw. He does a good job of eyeing the safety to confirm the coverage, and then looks to hit the wide receiver at the bottom of the screen, Elijah Sarratt, on a go route against off coverage. The problem is that Sarratt—who ran a 4.53-second 40-yard dash at Indiana’s pro day—isn’t a burner, so the corner can stay on top of the vertical route and it’s never open.

But Mendoza throws it anyway, and the pass falls incomplete, especially with the receiver tripping as the ball is coming. Obviously, the latter is out of the quarterback’s control, and it looks like he was trying to hit a back-shoulder throw to Sarratt. Meanwhile, Omar Cooper Jr. beats press coverage and wins deep on the stutter-and-go route.

Ideally, Mendoza uses his eyes to hold the safety in the middle of the field, similarly to what he does on the actual play by looking at the safety first and then eyeing Sarratt. That would force the safety to stay honest at least, and potentially cheat toward Sarratt, keeping the safety from helping the cornerback on Cooper. Then, Mendoza snaps his head around and has a potential touchdown up the other sideline.

What’s interesting about this decision is that even the pre-snap look indicates the ball should go to Cooper. Again, Sarratt isn’t that fast, so the likelihood of him winning on a deep route against off coverage is low. But Cooper, who runs a 4.42, has a chance to win at the line of scrimmage and get a step on his cornerback from the jump, on top of having the speed to create separation out of the break on the double move.

Even if the receiver got tied up against press coverage, the quarterback could hit the tight end on the crossing route. Instead, he locked in on one target and threw it regardless of whether the target was open or not.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s look at a few examples of the Hoosier quarterback executing the offense at a high level.

This is an RPO, which has a stigma because there are no progressions to the passing game. That’s fair when discussing the jump from college to the NFL, but the QB still has to read the defense and be a good decision-maker for the offense to function properly, and Mendoza executes that here.

The Fighting Illini come out in a light box with only five defenders in it, giving a pre-snap indicator that the ball should be handed off on the RPO. However, something is a little off with the entire unit’s alignment. The offense is in a three-by-one formation, but the defense has a safety cheating toward the single receiver instead of playing closer to the hashmarks. Especially since that’s on the short side of the field with the ball on the hash, the safety’s alignment is a pretty good indicator that the cornerback is blitzing.

Lo and behold, the corner crashes hard off the edge when he sees the run action in the backfield. Mendoza, likely expecting the defender to be aggressive based on the pre-snap alignment, pulls the ball from the running back’s belly and makes the corner wrong. Meanwhile, the receiver, Sarratt, picks up on it and runs a simple hot route to catch the ball between the two defensive backs for an easy completion/first down. On top of that, Sarratt makes the safety miss to create a more explosive play.

So, while we started with a bad example of Mendoza taking in the pre-snap information, this is a great read where he takes in all of the information presented to him.

Here, we’ll get another RPO and good decision from Mendoza. The read is simpler or more traditional this time, as Illinois loads up the box against the 21 personnel look from Indiana and the entire second level crashes hard downhill with the run action in the backfield. For what it’s worth, Illinois was selling out to stop the run in this game, especially early, but it didn’t work because the defensive backs were getting picked apart.

Out wide, Sarratt wins against press-man coverage to create separation on the slant route. However, circling back to the trenches, the right guard slips while run blocking, allowing the defensive tackle to get penetration/pressure and be in the quarterback’s face on the throw.

So, Mendoza makes a slight adjustment to his arm angle, where he isn’t throwing sidearm, but releases the ball at about a 45-degree angle to get it around the defensive tackle. As a result, the pass hits Sarratt in stride and with enough time for him to protect himself from the hit by the safety, allowing the offense to move the chains.

It’s a small tweak by the quarterback, but one that gets the job done to keep the Hoosiers on schedule.

We’re moving on from the RPOs and getting into standard drop-back passes, but this throw is almost identical to the last one.

It’s second and goal from the five, and the Illini bring the house with the Cover 0 blitz. So, the defense has more rushers than the offense can block, with a seven-to-six advantage. That means someone is going to be unblocked, and it’s the quarterback’s job to beat the free rusher by making a quick decision and getting rid of the ball.

With the left tackle staying inside to pick up the linebacker blitzing in the B-gap, Mendoza faces edge pressure from the standup outside linebacker. He stays calm in the pocket and waits for Sarratt to beat man coverage on the slant route, delivering a perfect pass that’s on time and accurate for a touchdown.

That’s something that stands out about the Heisman Trophy winner’s game. He’s very poised under pressure, sometimes too much.

This time, we’re diving into a somewhat rare off-script play from Mendoza last season.

Indiana is trying to set up a fake screen, where they use Sarratt as a decoy to try and catch the defense being aggressive before hitting the tight end (Pittsburgh Steelers’ fifth-round pick, Riley Nowakowski) on what essentially turns into a wheel route with Nowakowski in motion and faking a block before releasing downfield.

However, Illinois is in Cover 3 and only rushes three defenders. So, with five underneath defenders, the cornerback has plenty of help against a short route and, wisely, stays home to do his job and not get beaten over his head. On top of that, the free safety is in a position to drive on or take away the crossing route from the slot receiver on the other side of the formation.

Maybe Mendoza can hit the backside dig route at the top of the screen since the hook-to-curl defender stays low with the running back releasing into the flat. But the cornerback is in a decent spot to drive on the dig, and the curl-to-flat defender stays deep to tighten that window. Plus, pressure starts to come with the left tackle losing control around the edge, meaning the quarterback is running out of time. So, he scrambles instead.

Once Mendoza sees the cornerback leave Sarratt to attack him, Mendoza dumps the ball to Sarratt and gets a first down out of a play that the defense had covered initially. That’s a great job of making a defensive back pay for not plastering to his man.

We’ll wrap up with the best throw of the game by the Raiders’ new franchise quarterback.

It’s third and goal from the 11-yard line, and the defense comes out in a two-high look pre-snap. However, it appears as if they have a coverage bust post-snap, where both safeties step downhill and no one is in the end zone to help the cornerbacks prevent a touchdown over the middle.

Meanwhile, Raiders’ undrafted free agent wide receiver E.J. Williams does a great job of winning on the glance route, which is basically a hybrid between a slant and a post. For those who care, the route break is a little further down the field than a slant but not as deep as a post, and the receiver takes an angle to get behind the second-level defenders. The latter becomes significant in this play with both safeties stepping down.

With the safety in the middle of the field playing low, Williams has plenty of room in the endzone to make the catch, especially after beating the cornerback cleanly. Notice that after the receiver wins, he points up in the air mid-route to ask for a jump ball. Mendoza picks up on that and delivers an excellent layered throw where the safety can’t make a play on the pass, but Williams can high-point it for a touchdown.

That’s a perfect ball for this situation and a great grab, perhaps one that we’ll see more of during the preseason with the Hoosier connection in Las Vegas.

Up next is when Indiana’s schedule started to toughen up, as Mendoza had a more roller coaster type of performance against Iowa.

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