Mendoza makes history as first Hoosier to win Davey O’Brien award

FORT WORTH, Texas (WISH) — The awards keep coming for Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza.

Monday night, the Heisman Trophy winner and national champion was named this year’s Davey O’Brien Award winner, which is given to the top quarterback in college football each year.

Mendoza becomes the first Hoosier to win the esteemed award and just the fifth player in college football history to win the Heisman, O’Brien, and Maxwell awards, plus take home the national championship. The other four on that list are former LSU and current Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow, Auburn’s Cam Newton, Florida’s Danny Wuerffel and Florida State’s Charlie Ward.

The consensus All-American helped the Hoosiers complete a undefeated 16-0 season after defeating Miami for the first college football national championship in program history. En route to the perfect record, Mendoza accumulated 41 passing touchdowns and 48 total touchdowns — both the most of any player in the country this season. He also set single-season program records with those numbers.

Now, Mendoza shifts his focus to his future professional career. He talked about that at the O’Brien Award ceremony in Fort Worth.

“College is great, but that part’s behind me,” he told the Associated Press.