Fernando Mendoza versus Purdue, Part XII of Las Vegas Raiders’ Mendoza Mania

We’re wrapping up the regular season in Silver and Black Pride’s Mendoza Mania series, diving into film breakdowns for each of Fernando Mendoza’s games during his last College Football season, and looking at Indiana’s dominant 56-3 win over in-state rival Purdue.

However, this was the Las Vegas Raiders’ new quarterback’s worst performance of a passer from last year, going eight for 15 (53.3% completions) with 117 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. The latter is misleading, though.

Pro Football Focus had him on the hook for three “turnover-worthy plays” at a 17.6 percent rate, his most TWPs and highest rate (by over 12 percent) on the year. Also, the 2026 NFL draft No. 1 pick didn’t account for any “big-time throws” and posted his lowest PFF passing grade (28.3) of the season by more than 20 points against the Boilermakers.

So, fair warning, this breakdown is going to be more negative than positive, as it looked like the Heisman Trophy winner was pressing and forced a handful of throws.

This was Mendoza’s first pass of the game and, in a way, set a precursor for how the rest of the night went for him.

Purdue is playing man coverage and makes no secret about it by showing and staying in Cover 1 pre- and post-snap while both corners are lined up in press coverage. With Indiana in a three-by-one formation, that sets up Elijah Sarratt with a one-on-one matchup that Mendoza clearly likes and wants to take advantage of.

However, the cornerback plays soft-shoe press coverage instead of going for the jam at the line of scrimmage and stays in Sarratt’s hip throughout the route, meaning the receiver is never open. Ideally, the quarterback comes off the one-on-one matchup and works the other side of the progression, where the outside receiver and tight end are open.

Instead, Mendoza tries to throw a back-shoulder pass to Sarratt and misses too far inside, forcing the receiver to be the defender and prevent the interception. Predetermining and being inaccurate with the throw is a bad combination, and he’s lucky this wasn’t a turnover.

While the receiver and route are different here, this play is almost a carbon copy of the previous one.

The Boilermakers have the same play call, running Cover 1 with a six-man pressure, while the Hoosiers come out in a three-by-one formation again. Granted, it doesn’t look like this is a predetermined throw/decision by Mendoza, but more of him trying to force the ball into someone who isn’t open.

The matchup to watch here is in the slot, where the nickelback does a great job of covering Omar Cooper Jr. on the drag route. The defender knows he has safety help over the top with the single-high coverage. So, once Cooper releases off the line and starts to work across the field, the nickel can undercut the route to get into the passing lane since the free safety is protecting him from being beaten deep.

As a result, the receiver isn’t open. But Mendoza throws it anyway and doesn’t get enough air on the ball to place it between the second and third levels of the defense. Instead, the pass goes right to the defender and should have been intercepted if the receiver didn’t play great defense to force the drop.

What makes this play more frustrating is that if Mendoza had gotten to his next read, he would have seen the cornerback who was covering Sarratt slip to create an opportunity for a big play. While the pass-rush was coming, he had plenty of time to move on in the progression.

This next one is a missed read more than anything.

Purdue mixes up their coverage by showing the Cover 1 look they ran in the first two clips with the free safety in the middle of the field pre-snap. However, post-snap, they rotate into Cover 3 with pattern-matching principles in the secondary, where the nickelback in the boundary (bottom of the screen) rotates into the middle deep third and the safety slides over to take the hook-to-curl area.

Also, they’re protecting against a deep or intermediate throw by having the middle linebacker drop well past the sticks in the other hook-to-curl zone, on top of the safety staying about five yards beyond the marker. That becomes the most significant aspect of the coverage because it leaves Sarratt wide open for an easy first down on the drag route.

However, Mendoza doesn’t recognize it and appears to be looking for a big play despite it being third and seven, meaning it’s more important for the offense to convert and stay on the field. Additionally, he could hit the running back for a potential first down, especially since the defender closest to the back is a line of scrimmage player who dropped in coverage.

With no one other than the checkdowns open, the quarterback has to hold onto the ball and the pass-rush starts to hit home. He eventually finds Charlie Becker (No. 80), who is working across the field on the dig route, and tries to layer the ball over the aforementioned linebacker in the middle of the field, but the pass falls incomplete.

In fairness, Becker does get alligator arms with Riley Nowakowski (No. 37) working toward the middle of the field. So, maybe this pass could have been completed with a more courageous effort from the receiver. But that doesn’t change the fact that an easy completion that would have gotten the job done was there for the taking.

Something was off with the Heisman Trophy winner in this game. He wasn’t seeing the field as clearly as he did in previous weeks, with the rep above serving as another example.

Once again, the Boilermakers are playing Cover 1. Meanwhile, Indiana draws up a bootleg, where Mendoza could hit the running back in the flat to keep the offense on schedule. But there is an opportunity for a bigger play, so it’s understandable that he turns that down, especially since the receiver at the top of the screen wins on the corner route. However, Mendoza doesn’t see it or make that throw, either.

Then, Becker comes from the other side of the field and is open on the drag route. Mendoza eventually finds Becker, but not until after he pivots toward the line of scrimmage, causing him to be late and miss the throw on the run. Maybe he was trying to get those two underneath defenders to come downhill, but he didn’t need to do that, and it’s more important to be on time and accurate with the throw than play games with the defense.

Overall, this was definitely an off-night from the No. 1 pick. He had plenty of examples of going through the proper reads, making good decisions and good throws on the run throughout the season. However, Mendoza did tend to have one to two forced or predetermined throws that were dangerous per game; it was just more frequent against Purdue.

So, that’s something he’ll want to be conscious of in the NFL because one or two bad decisions from a quarterback can be the difference between winning and losing a game.

To end on a high note, Mendoza did have a pair of nice runs against Purdue, accounting for two carries, 27 rushing yards and the score the ground seen above.

The breakdown is simple here because the blocking is perfect from Indiana. They run a read option with inside/split zone action in the backfield. Since the defensive end is the read man and crashes down the line of scrimmage to tackle the running back, the quarterback pulls the ball and the tight end working across the formation serves as the lead blocker.

With the safety coming downhill hard, all the tight end has to do is get to the safety’s outside shoulder and pin the safety inside, creating an outside rushing lane. That makes Mendoza’s job easy, as he reads the block well by staying wide and has the speed to outrun the linebacker, going untouched into the end zone. Working off or setting up blocks is one of his biggest strengths as a runner.

We’ll wrap up with arguably the best read the quarterback made in the passing game all night.

Purdue stays true to form, running Cover 1 again here. The biggest difference from the other clips is that they don’t bring pressure and have the middle linebacker serve as the low-hole player or a spy. I lean toward the latter because his eyes are locked on the quarterback the entire time, and he never turns his head to locate a receiver, evidenced by the backer getting taken out by Becker on the shallow route.

With no one open down the field and once the spy gets removed from the equation, Mendoza recognizes an opportunity to make a play with his legs since the defense is in man coverage, so the defensive backs have their backs turned to the quarterback. Then, he makes a move to avoid a pass-rusher and goes right down the middle of the defense for a 20-yard run that puts the offense in the red zone.

Again, this was by far the Heisman Trophy winner’s worst game of the season, and it, surprisingly, came against a 2-10 team. But a big part of that is the Boilermakers’ game plan was clearly to stop the passing game. Indiana threw for just 193 yards (Alberto Mendoza had 76 of those) but rushed for 355 yards and 9.6 yards per carry as a team. Also, Fernando did manage to have a couple of noteworthy runs to help salvage the performance.

Up next is the Big Ten Championship, where Mendoza delivered a handful of jaw-dropping throws.

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