Shortly after Fernando Mendoza led Indiana to a perfect season and a national title, Fox Sports lead college football analyst Joel Klatt floated the idea that he would lead his team to winning games by outplaying the Hoosiers star better than any young quarterback in the NFL. Now, with the 2026 NFL Draft fast approaching, Klatt has not only embraced that idea, but maybe another top draft analyst agrees with him.
On the latest episode of “The Joel Klatt Show”, Klatt and NFL Draft analyst Todd McShay agreed that they would trust Mendoza more than almost any other young quarterback to lead a team to a game-winning drive in the final minutes.
“I think I’d take Mendoza,” Klatt said, listing Caleb Williams, Cam Ward and others.
Meanwhile, McShay believes the debate is between Mendoza and just one other quarterback.
“Maybe it’ll come down to Mendoza and Drake Mays,” McShay said. “I’m equipped with what I’ve seen in the NFL, which isn’t fair. But if we’re talking about a college career, absolutely, 1,000%.
“But knowing what I know in the NFL, I’d still pick (Mendoza). He’s different.
While Indiana won all 16 of its games last season, not all of those wins were pretty. Mendoza was needed to lead the Hoosiers to fourth quarter comebacks in tough road environments at Iowa and Penn State. He had to make big throws in the fourth quarter of their win at Oregon and lead Indiana to the game-winning drive. He also needed to make some clutch throws and plays to help lead Indiana to a win over Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship before doing the same thing in Indiana’s win over Miami (Florida) in the title game.
Which QB would you want in clutch time in the game?
Of course, the NFL is a different level of competition than the college game, and some of the league’s top young quarterbacks have proven they can handle clutch moments last season. Williams, 24, helped the Chicago Bears record six fourth-quarter comebacks in 2025, the most in the league. Bo Nix, 26, had five fourth-quarter comebacks and led the league in game-winning drives (seven) for the Denver Broncos.
Mendoza had arguably the best college career of any quarterback since the beginning of the decade; He is the first signal-caller to win the Heisman Trophy and a national title since Joe Burrow in 2019. That’s why Klatt thought it was an easy choice to select Mendoza as the quarterback he would replace against other young quarterbacks with the game on the line.
“You take him to Cam Ward,” Klatt said in a previous episode. “Williams? Possibly. Jayden Daniels? Possibly? Maye? Definitely after the Super Bowl. (Michael) Penix (Jr.) and (JJ) McCarthy? Absolutely. Knicks? The way the Knicks played in tough times and in some of those (big) games, especially in the fourth quarter, he’s questionable.
“Mendoza is incredible in crunch time. He anticipates, is accurate, is smart and is a great teammate. He checks every single box.”
Just as Klatt was amazed at Mendoza’s ability to perform in the clutch, McShay believes the Indiana product’s best quality is his ability to handle adversity and his leadership.
“I don’t think he’s been around (Tom) Brady much, but you get that same environment where he’s focused on things that if you’re in a high school classroom and this kid is talking with his hands up, he’s going to be annoying,” McShay said. “But after doing this for 26 years and hearing the things he focused on as a young man, I think, ‘Man, he gets it.'”
“I value adversity and not necessarily the chip (on your shoulder) and the stuff we love to talk about on TV, but I think as human beings, we’ve all gone through different levels of adversity,” McShay said. “Only one human being in the world can survive that failure, humiliation or embarrassment and tell you what it was like to manage it internally and tell yourself, ‘I’m still what I think. I’m still that man, and now I’m in a tough position to prove it.’ …Those moments, they make us and they define us. For Fernando, it was ‘The stars don’t matter.’ The stars don’t define Fernando Mendoza.’ I like the fact that he’s coming into the league and he already has some of that.”
Klatt agreed with that assessment of Mendoza, who seems almost certain to be taken by the Las Vegas Raiders with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft.
“He kept saying to me last year, ‘Every day I’m trying to be the best Fernando Mendoza I can possibly be,’ which sounds stupid,” Klatt said. “Like you said, if you’re in a high school class, you roll your eyes and say, ‘Oh, okay.’
“But when it’s real, there’s something about it and it can obviously propel you towards becoming a great player in the future.”
