Fernando Mendoza ‘lucky’ to interview with Raiders, says Tom Brady mentorship would ‘mean so much’

Mendoza didn’t pull that number out of thin air. That famously was the landing spot 26 years ago when the Patriots used a sixth-round pick on Tom Brady, who is now a minority owner of the Raiders. During Mendoza’s formal Raiders interview, he said he was able to say “a brief hi” to Brady on the phone and that he’d love to one day meet Brady in person. Brady was part of a Raiders contingent at Indiana’s title game win over Miami, but Mendoza said he didn’t know Brady was there — despite Brady stalking the sidelines — until after IU won the game.

The stars feel aligned for a Mendoza-Brady summit soon enough. Mendoza isn’t working out at the combine, instead planning to throw for NFL evaluators at Indiana’s pro day, which is scheduled for April 1, in Bloomington. It’s also highly likely that Mendoza visits the Raiders in Las Vegas. Mendoza has openly spoken about what Brady meant to him as a player, and he doubled down on that admiration Friday.

“Yeah, I mean, who hasn’t admired Tom Brady? I mean, more Super Bowl rings than anybody … anybody!” Mendoza said. “So, that opportunity would be fantastic. Tom Brady, I believe, is the greatest quarterback of all time — by a wide margin — and to be able to have the opportunity to be mentored by him, would … mean so much.

“Especially to learn, and I’m all about learning. So from Day 1, you know, I’ve got to learn a lot. It’s gonna be a long journey, and to potentially have a mentor like that, it would be pretty impressive and pretty meaningful.”

Mendoza led the Hoosiers to a 16-0 mark last season and has won 19 of his past 20 college football starts, dating back to the 2024 season when he was at Cal. He’s potentially going from that to the Raiders, who have gone 7-27 the past two seasons and are on their sixth head coach since 2020, with Klint Kubiak taking over this offseason.

Even so, Mendoza didn’t appear daunted by the potential challenge of helping turn around a down-and-out franchise.

“I mean, we see how the NFL turns around so much,” Mendoza said. “NFL, the margins are so small. There are so many games decided by so few points, and the difference between, you know, a losing record and a winning record is a couple of drives, a couple of key plays.

“And so whatever team I’m on, I’m just gonna take that advice and take the coaching from the coaching staff, and however I can best serve my teammates on that team, I’m doing to the best of my ability.”

Mendoza’s rags-to-riches story has been well-told, going from the recruit no major college teams seemed to want just a few years ago to a Heisman Trophy winner and national champion. But he credited the middle part of that journey, struggling to find success at Cal, with his development to this point.

“My first two years, out of probably the 18 games I played — I don’t know the exact number, so don’t quote me on that — but a lot of them were one-score games,” he said. “Had a lot of tough defeats, whether it was (losing 50-49 to) USC and Caleb Williams two years ago, whether it was (a 39-38 loss) to Cam Ward and the Miami Hurricanes the (next) year.

“I believe a lot of that experience of failing, coming up so short, helped me in this new realm with Indiana, whenever we’ve gone behind and dug yourself in the hole with Penn State, with Oregon, with Iowa. I’m able to learn from those failures and make those into successes, and then they’d be able to help my teammates.”

Mendoza is two months away from learning who his new teammates will be, but everyone else expects his new team to be the Raiders. Wherever it is, Mendoza laid out what he believes needs to be the formula for success and how he plans to integrate with his new franchise.

“I believe with an NFL franchise, to lead it, you need equity, and then you need two things to build equity. You need, one, to play well. And that’s where all my focus goes in: football, football, football,” Mendoza said. “If you want to lead, you first have to play well. And then second, it’s having the respect of your teammates. Through work ethic, through your leadership, through your tenacity — the way you respond to mistakes. And so those are all things I’m looking to work on.”