Tag Archives: Big Ten

Fernando Mendoza Becomes First Heisman Trophy Winner of Cuban Descent

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Fernando Mendoza is celebrating a historic win…

The 22-year-old Cuban American college football player, the quarterback for the Indiana Hoosiers was announced as the 91st winner of the Heisman Memorial Trophy during ABC’s 2025 Heisman Trophy on Saturday, December 13,

Fernando Mendoza

Mendoza, who received 2,362 points, including 643 first-place votes, becomes the first college football player of Cuban descent to claim the Heisman and only the third Latino winner in the award’s history.

Vanderbilt Commodores quarterback Diego Pavia, who is of Spanish and Mexican descent, finished second with 1,435 points and 189 first-place votes.

Notre Dame running back Jeremiyah Love was third with 719 points and 46 first-place votes and Ohio State quarterback Julian Sayin was fourth with 432 points and eight first-place votes.

Mendoza, a redshirt junior, is Indiana’s first Heisman winner. Indiana’s previous highest finisher was 1989 runner-up Anthony Thompson.

The 6-foot-5, 225-pounder from Miami, Fla., is the 2025 Big Ten Offensive Player and Quarterback of the Year and an All-Big Ten first-team quarterback who led Indiana to a 2025 Big Ten Championship victory over Ohio State and a No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff.

Mendoza, in his first year at Indiana after transferring from California, led the Hoosiers to a 13-0 record and the program’s first-ever No. 1 ranking.

He completed 226-of-316 passes for 2,980 yards and a nation-leading 33 TD passes while rushing for 240 yards and another six scores.

He is second nationally in total touchdowns accounted for (39) and in quarterback rating (181.39) and is sixth in completion percentage (71.5). Mendoza’s 33 TD passes are a school season record as are his five games this season with four or more scoring passes.

He threw for a season-high 332 yards and four scores in a win over Michigan State. He completed better than 85% of his passes four times this year and threw at least one TD pass in each game outside of the season-opener.

Mendoza was named the AP Player of the Year earlier this week and also won the Maxwell, Walter Camp and Davey O’Brien Awards.

Mendoza, whose passer rating of 181.39 is 10th-best among Heisman winners, is the seventh player in the last nine years to win the award after transferring and the fourth in a row. He is the sixth Heisman winner to hail from Florida and the second in a row. He is the first winner from a current Big Ten team since USC’s Caleb Williams in 2022.

Mendoza, who earned his undergraduate business degree in Berkeley last year and is pursuing a Master’s at Indiana, is the 39th quarterback to win the award. He is only the second Heisman winner to wear No. 15, following Tim Tebow (2007).

Pavia is Vanderbilt’s highest finisher ever. The next highest came in the third year of the award when Commodore All-American center Carl Hinkle finished seventh in 1937.

Love is Notre Dame’s highest finisher in the Heisman voting since Manti Te’o was the 2012 runner-up. Sayin is Ohio State’s highest finisher since 2023 when Marvin Harrison Jr. was fourth.

The 2025 Heisman Trophy ballots went out to 930 electors, which includes 870 members of the media, 59 living Heisman winners and one overall fan vote. All ballots were submitted electronically to the independent accountants at Deloitte.

Rounding out the top 10 finishers were fifth-place Texas Tech senior linebacker Jacob Rodriguez, sixth-place Ohio State sophomore wide receiver Jeremiah Smith, seventh-place Georgia junior quarterback Gunner Stockton, eighth-place Mississippi senior quarterback Trinidad Chambliss, ninth-place Ohio State junior safety Caleb Downs and 10th-place Georgia Tech senior quarterback Haynes King.

Alvarez to Coach His Former Wisconsin Team at the Rose Bowl

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Barry Alvarez will be stopping to smell the roses on New Year’s Day…

The 65-year-old Latino football coach will return to the sidelines to lead the Wisconsin Badgers when they face No. 8 Stanford at the Rose Bowl on on January 1. Thursday’s announcement came two days after Bret Bielema stepped down to take over at Arkansas.

Barry Alvarez

“I’m very excited about coming back,” said Alvarez. “This will be a one-game — I’m not looking to do it any longer than one game.”

Bielema’s departure was a shock, coming just three days after Wisconsin earned a school-record third straight trip to the Rose Bowl with a 70-31 beating of then-No. 14 Nebraska in the Big Ten championship game. But speculation immediately centered on Alvarez returning as coach, at least for one game.

His return will mean little disruption for players. Even though Alvarez stepped down as head coach after the 2005 season, he’s remained an integral part of the football program as Wisconsin’s athletic director and the team is comfortable with him. They won’t have to adapt to a new coaching style.

In fact, it was the players who convinced Alvarez to come back. Following Bielema’s announcement, Alvarez received messages from senior quarterback Curt Phillips and captain Mike Taylor, who said the players had met and decided they wanted him as their Rose Bowl coach.

“I told him I would be honored to coach them,” said Alvarez. “I wanted them to understand, if I was going to coach them, we weren’t going to screw around, we were going to go out there to win.”

Alvarez’s 118-73-4 record in 16 seasons coaching the Badgers includes a 3-0 mark in the Rose Bowls — Wisconsin’s only victories in eight trips to Pasadena.

During his tenure as head coach, Alvarez turned the program into one of the Big Ten‘s top teams. Wisconsin had had five straight losing seasons before Alvarez arrived in 1990, and posted a winning record in just six of the previous 26 seasons. After losing to USC in the 1963 Rose Bowl, Wisconsin would go 19 years without a bowl appearance.