Fernando Mendoza wasn’t a can’t miss superstar in high school. Not even close.
As a senior at Cristopher Columbus High School in Miami in the 2022 class, 247Sports rated Mendoza as the 250th best recruit in Florida. He was never considered for the USA Today Florida Network’s top 100.
Even Mendoza’s high school coach didn’t feel the quarterback was the best prospect in his own family.
“He wasn’t a finished product in high school,” Columbus coach Dave Dunn said. “His younger brother, Alberto, was a much more finished product. He even said at one time he was like a baby giraffe in high school. But he had knowledge and work ethic. He’s worked so hard.”
In an era when most elite prospects sign during the early signing period in December, Mendoza had to wait until late January of his senior year to even get an FBS offer.
Fast forward four years and Mendoza has a full trophy case from his historic season at Indiana and is the overwhelming favorite to be the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft.
“He’s a late bloomer,” Miami Palmetto coach Mike Manasco said. “His senior year, we played him three times. I thought he was great in the offense Columbus runs. Tough kid. Felt his feet were his best attribute. Every game he got better. In the playoff game, he was a lot better than he was during the regular season. I always thought his younger brother was going to be the one. But Fernando is the one.”
Did Mendoza get overlooked in high school?
You could make that argument … now. And some have. They’ll swear they saw what Mendoza could or would become.
“People have revisionist history,” Dunn said. “At the time, coaches were telling me that they liked him, but they were going to pass. Now all those guys are coming back to me, and they all blame someone else for why they didn’t take him.”
But the reality is Mendoza wasn’t a superstar in high school.
He was impressive as a junior when he led Columbus to a 9-0 record in a COVID shortened season. It also came at a time when college coaches were unable to see high school players in person — a travel ban that extended to the spring before Mendoza’s senior year.
For recruiting purposes, Mendoza basically lost the season where players tend to go from prospect to recruit and then the most important spring to be seen by coaches.
And then he got to his senior year. Columbus came into the season riding a 16-game win streak, but this wasn’t the same team.
“We did not have a good receiving core, and we had a really young offensive line,” Dunn said.
Mendoza got hit a lot his senior year. Miami Palmetto coaches came away impressed with his toughness because of how many times he got up after getting hit. Venice sacked him seven times in his final high school game.
“He was very polished with footwork and was very accurate with the football,” Venice coach John Peacock said after rewatching the film from their 35-7 win over Columbus in the 2021 state semifinal game. “We had a very good front that year which caused the majority of his issues. But you could tell he was a very good player.”
What did coaches think of Mendoza’s potential?
The summer before Mendoza’s senior year, Dunn was at a 7-on-7. He overheard a college coach concerned that they were going to miss on Columbus’ rising senior quarterback. The college coach liked the way Mendoza threw the ball and loved his ability on the white board, but he wasn’t sure if he could sell his head coach on taking a chance on an unheralded prospect. They never offered.
Dunn retells the story as an outlier, not a common refrain. No one saw this version of Mendoza coming.
“I felt like he was an average quarterback, nothing crazy,” Chaminade-Madonna coach Dameon Jones said. Chaminade beat Columbus 33-17 during Mendoza’s senior year, a game that saw Mendoza throw an interception to future Indiana teammate — and fellow NFL Draft prospect — D’Angelo Ponds. “He was what we call a game manager. That’s what we thought about him. I see this happen all the time. He was one way in high school and then he gets in certain systems and the system fits. He could have been at a whole other school than Indiana and not looked like that. That system fit and I hope at the next level system fits him, too.”
Mendoza’s best traits in high school were the intangibles, which were off the charts: Intelligence, high football I.Q., leadership, maturity and work ethic.
“He led the offense well,” Manasco said. “You could tell he was good leader. As far as him throwing, I wasn’t as concerned as much as I was with him being able to extend play s with his feet. We hit him a lot and he popped up, he was tough. We tried to prevent him from leaving the pocket. Our game plan every game was keep him in the pocket, limit his access throws and limit his running.”
When did the No. 1 pick version of Mendoza emerge?
Mendoza has always been passionate about football and willing to put in the work. He opted to eat lunch with Dunn instead of his friends every day at Columbus just so the two could talk football.
“He’s worked so hard and all he cares about is football,” Dunn said. “He’s all football. He was a guy who you knew his best football was ahead of him. And he has an unmatched work ethic.”
The phrase, “bigger, faster, stronger,” gets overused but it’s appropriate for the 6-foot-5, 236-pound Mendoza. He’s grown at least 1/2 inch and added almost 30 pounds since high school. Dunn said he looks more like tight end now.
The arm strength has improved, too. Fernando and Alberto Mendoza returned to Columbus over the summer to workout. They put a receiver 22 yards downfield on the opposite sideline.
“He was throwing BBs to the opposite hash,” Dunn said. “That’s a freaking throw. He has elite arm strength in that regard.”
Mendoza emerged as a solid quarterback at Cal — the school he signed with out of high school — but took things to another level after transferring to Indiana before the 2025 season. Dunn credits Mendoza’s connection with Chandler Whitmer, Indiana’s quarterback coach in 2025 who since has been hired for the same role with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, for helping Mendoza’s growth.
So here we are on the precipice of the NFL Draft, and for the second consecutive year the No. 1 pick will almost certainly be a quarterback who went from unheralded in high school to undeniable by NFL scouts.
“It’s great,” Manasco said. “It’s always fun to battle in high school and then see these kids progress. He wasn’t highly recruited out of high school at all. Coach Dunn does a great job developing quarterbacks. He’s just a guy who produces quarterbacks well. And something hit when he was in college. Some of the throws he makes now, if he made those in high school we wouldn’t have had a chance.”
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Fernando Mendoza’s journey from ‘average’ high school QB to NFL Draft
Reporting by Jon Santucci, USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida / Palm Beach Post
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
