Mendoza Latest Heisman Winner Set To Play In College Football Playoff

For the first time since 2021 and the eighth time overall, the College Football Playoff will have a Heisman flavor as 2025 Heisman winner Fernando Mendoza will lead No. 1-seed Indiana into the Hoosiers’ quarterfinal game Thursday (Jan. 1) in the Rose Bowl against Alabama.

Mendoza and Indiana will take on Alabama at 4 p.m. ET in Pasadena. It is the Hoosiers’ second appearance in the Rose Bowl and the first since their debut in the game, a 14-3 loss to Heisman winner O.J. Simpson’s USC Trojans on Jan. 1, 1968.

Asked at a recent Rose Bowl press conference about how he’s approaching the game on the heels of such a magical season as well as winning the Heisman, Mendoza said:

“I think one thing is just really just keeping the process on how I got here, how the entire team got to this place, which is, you know, keeping the process that I’ve kept for every single game. Don’t change anything. And in that sense, also realize it is a team game.

“The reason I won the Heisman, had the opportunity, is because we’re 13-0 and at that point in the season we were the best team in college football. Now we got to go prove it again and realize that the Heisman was a team award, and now we got to get the ultimate team award, which is first being in the Rose Bowl.”

Fellow 2025 Heisman finalist Julian Sayin of Ohio State as well as Buckeye teammates and fellow 2025 Top 10 Heisman finishers Jeremiyah Smith and Caleb Downs will open CFP quarterfinal play today against Miami in the Cotton Bowl.

Fifth-place Heisman finisher Jacob Rodriguez will lead Texas Tech into the quarterfinals against Oregon on Jan. 1 in the Orange Bowl while seventh-place Heisman vote-getter Gunner Stockton of Georgia will face eighth-place Trinidad Chambliss in another quarterfinal game on Jan. 1 in the Sugar Bowl.

Mendoza’s opponent Thursday is no stranger to Heisman winners leading it into the CFP as three Alabama recipients of the Trophy played in the postseason tourney.

In the 2021 season, Bryce Young became the seventh and most recent Heisman winner to lead a team into the CFP when he directed the Crimson Tide to a CFP Semifinal win in the Cotton Bowl against Cincinnati on New Years’s Eve. Young’s Alabama squad fell to Georgia in the championship game.

Three Heisman winners have led their teams to CFP titles since the playoff system began in 2014, including Alabama’s Derrick Henry (2015) and DeVonta Smith (2020) as well as LSU’s Joe Burrow (2019).

The other winners who played in the CFP include Marcus Mariota (2014), Baker Mayfield (2017) and Kyler Murray (2018). Mariota led Oregon to a semifinal win in 2014.

Mariota totaled 671 passing yards in the 2014 semifinal and final games, completing 50 of 73 passing with four TDs. Henry, in 2015, rushed for a combined 233 yards in his pair of CFP games, including 158 yards in the title game win over Clemson.

Mayfield’s Sooners fell in a semifinal overtime thriller against Georgia in 2017. He threw for 311 yards and two TDs on 26-of-41 passing and also caught a TD pass on a trick play from receiver CeeDee Lamb.

Murray passed for 308 yards and two TDs and also ran for a game-high 109 yards and another score in Oklahoma’s 2018 semifinal loss to Alabama.

Burrow set CFP records for most passing yards (in a four-game playoff) with a whopping 956 yards, including 493 in the semifinal win over Oklahoma (a CFP record) and 463 in the title game against Clemson (one yard off the title game record).

His 521 total yards in the title game, his 1,036 total yards over both games, his 12 total TD passes and 14 total TDs (including two rushing scores) are also CFP four-team records. His 60 completions over those two games are second-most in CFP history. Burrow’s eight touchdowns responsible for in the 2019 semifinal game (including seven passing scores) is a CFP game record.

Smith’s CFP debut came in 2018 when he caught the game-winning touchdown pass from Heisman runner-up Tua Tagovailoa in OT of the 2018 CFP title game. His 345 receiving yards and six TD catches over two games in 2020-21 are CFP records, as are his 215 first-half receiving yards, 12 receptions and three TD receptions in the title game. Smith’s 215 receiving yards are also the third-most in any CFP game (he did not play in the second half of the 2021 title game due to an injury).

Young’s 57 pass attempts in the 2022 title game is a CFP record and his 35 completions is one off the CFP record.

2013 Heisman Trophy winner Jameis Winston played in the 2014 CFP a year after winning the award, his Florida State squad falling to Oregon in the semifinals. His 45 passing attempts are third most in a CFP semifinal and his 348 passing yards are fourth most.