Jake TrotterDec 8, 2025, 06:53 PM ET
- Jake Trotter is a senior writer at ESPN. Trotter covers college football. He also writes about other college sports, including men's and women's basketball. Trotter resides in the Cleveland area with his wife and three kids and is a fan of his hometown Oklahoma City Thunder. He covered the Cleveland Browns and NFL for ESPN for five years, moving back to college football in 2024. Previously, Trotter worked for the Middletown (Ohio) Journal, Austin American-Statesman and Oklahoman newspapers before joining ESPN in 2011. He's a 2004 graduate of Washington and Lee University. You can reach out to Trotter at [email protected] and follow him on X at @Jake_Trotter.
Two days after leading Indiana to its first Big Ten championship in 58 years, Fernando Mendoza was announced as a Heisman Trophy finalist Monday.
Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia, Notre Dame running back Jeremiyah Love and Ohio State quarterback Julian Sayin joined the Hoosiers quarterback as the four finalists.
The winner will be revealed Saturday in New York.
Mendoza defeated Sayin and the Buckeyes in the Big Ten championship game Saturday to earn the No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff.
Mendoza clinched the victory with a 33-yard strike to Charlie Becker on third down, which allowed the Hoosiers to salt away the clock in the 13-10 victory to remain unbeaten. He passed for 222 yards and the go-ahead touchdown in the third quarter, as Indiana knocked off the Buckeyes after 30 consecutive defeats that dated back to 1988.
"We were never supposed to be in this position," said Mendoza, the game's MVP, "but now we're the flipping champs."
Mendoza -- the minus-1200 favorite to win the Heisman according to DraftKings Sportsbook -- will try to make more history this weekend. The Hoosiers have never had a Heisman winner, although running back Anthony Thompson finished runner-up in the voting to Houston quarterback Andre Ware, now an ESPN college football analyst, in 1989.
Mendoza, a junior, transferred to Indiana from Cal during the offseason.
The Heisman has been awarded to the nation's most outstanding college football player since 1935. The top four vote-getters determined by more than 900 voters are selected as finalists. The voting panel includes members of the media and former Heisman winners.
Though Vanderbilt didn't make the playoff, Pavia is having an historical run for the Commodores, as well.
The senior led Vanderbilt to its first 10-win season in school history and set school records with 3,192 passing yards and 27 passing touchdowns.
Love and the Fighting Irish also narrowly missed out on the playoff, as Miami jumped Notre Dame in the final rankings.
He scored 21 all-purpose touchdowns, passing Jerome Bettis (1991) for the most in a season in Notre Dame history. Love, a junior, also ended the regular season fourth nationally with 1,372 rushing yards and third with 18 rushing touchdowns, while averaging 6.89 yards per carry.
Though he fell short in the Big Ten championship to Mendoza, Sayin had a spectacular first season starting for the Buckeyes. He ranks second nationally with a QBR of 89.6 and currently owns the best completion rate (78.4%) in FBS history. Sayin, a sophomore, threw three touchdowns on Nov. 29, as the Buckeyes snapped a four-game losing streak to Michigan with a 27-9 victory in Ann Arbor.
Ohio State is the No. 2 seed in the playoff, and like the Hoosiers, will have a first-round bye.
