Indiana losing Fernando Mendoza makes Curt Cignetti, 3,000-yard QB, ready for unthinkable

Bloomington, Ind. — When Fernando Mendoza hoisted both the Heisman Trophy and the national championship trophy last January, the Indiana Hoosiers believed their quarterback pipeline had reached an unprecedented peak. Less than five months later, Mendoza’s departure has forced the program to confront life after a legend—yet head coach Curt Cignetti insists the standard never drops.

Enter Josh Hoover, the 3,000-plus-yard passer plucked from TCU this off-season. CBS Sports analyst Cody Nagel argues Hoover’s arrival flips the narrative from rebuilding to reloading, writing that “the thought of Indiana producing a No. 1 overall pick in the NFL Draft would have seemed impossible” before Mendoza. Doing it in back-to-back drafts, Nagel adds, “would have been absurd,” but Hoover now inherits an offense already proven to elevate quarterbacks to the top of draft boards. Oklahoma accomplished the feat with Baker Mayfield (2018) and Kyler Murray (2019); USC last did it in the late 1960s.

ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit echoed the optimism on “Crain and Cone,” tagging Hoover as a potential sleeper among returning signal-callers. “I really think that Josh Hoover could be that guy,” Herbstreit said, lumping him in with Texas A&M’s Marcel Reed as breakout candidates in 2025.

Whether Hoover ultimately emerges as a franchise-quarterback prototype or simply keeps the Hoosiers in Big Ten contention, the message inside the football complex is uniform: the engine that Mendoza drove to historic heights remains revved. Cignetti, described by staffers as “a fearless leader who continuously strives for perfection,” has made it clear the off-season objective is continuity, not consolation.

Indiana will open camp this summer with the same up-tempo, quarterback-friendly scheme that turned Mendoza into a household name. If Hoover mirrors even a fraction of that success, the Hoosiers could again find themselves at the center of college football’s most improbable story—only this time, the plot twist is already written in Bloomington.