Is Cal Grad Fernando Mendoza the Lowest Rated High School Recruit to Be a No. 1 NFL Pick?

A de-commitment by a four-star quarterback began Mendoza’s unlikely rise at Cal, leading to the cover of Esquire magazine now

Fernando Mendoza at Cal in 2024 | Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images

What if four-star quarterback Justyn Martin, now at Ohio State, had not de-committed from Cal in September of 2021?

What if Bill Musgrave, now the New York Jets quarterbacks coach but then Cal’s offensive coordinator, had not wandered down to Miami to take a look at this Fernando Mendoza kid who was headed to Yale?

What if one of the two Cal quarterbacks ahead of Mendoza on the depth chart at the beginning of Mendoza’s redshirt freshman season had performed well that season, never allowing Mendoza to get on the field?

What if Mendoza, who had to compete for the starting job in the preseason of his third year at Cal, had not shown his potential in the comeback win over Stanford in 2024, leading to his transfer to Indiana?

Well, for one thing he wouldn’t be on the cover of Sports Illustrated, or, better yet, on the cover of Esquire magazine’s spring issue spotlighting the Mavericks of Sports with the line "And Then God Created Fernando Mendoza."

Presenting Mavericks of Sports and spring issue cover star, #FernandoMendoza.

🔗: https://t.co/rIFluWuDid pic.twitter.com/d04DzNpjqY

— Esquire (@esquire) April 13, 2026

It’s not a stretch to say that Cal in general and Musgrave in particular should get partial credit for making Mendoza the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NFL draft.

He happens to be the first player with a Cal diploma in hand to be the No. 1 overall pick. The two other Golden Bears to be top overall selections – quarterbacks Steve Bartkowski and Jaden Goff – did not have a Cal degree when they were drafted. Bartkowski dropped out of Cal when he was drafted in January of 1975, and Goff was a year shy of graduating when he was taken with the first pick in 2016.

Mendoza got his degree from Cal’s Haas School of Business before he began his 2025 season at Indiana.

But the most interesting aspect of Mendoza was that he was a mere two-star recruit coming out of Columbus High School in Miami, and had no offers from Division I schools until Cal came along late in the recruiting process. Lehigh and Bryant were the schools that showed interest in Mendoza, who was set to go to Yale.

Yet Mendoza only ranks No. 2 in the mythical list of lowest-rated high school prospects to become the No. 1 overall pick in an NFL draft.

Just last year, quarterback Cam Ward went from being a zero-star recruit who had no Division I offers out of high school to become the first pick of the 2025 NFL draft.

But Mendoza is No. 2 in that esoteric list, just ahead of offensive tackle Eric Fisher, who was the top NFL pick in 2013 after being a two-star prospect in high school.

Fisher was merely the1,858th-best prospect in the class of 2009, according to 247 Sports Composite, while Mendoza ranked 2,535th overall in the class of 2022 and No. 191 among quarterbacks, right behind some guy named Mike DePillo.

Ward, Fisher and Mendoza are exceptions to the rule, because a large majority of No. 1 overall NFL picks were five-star prospects in high school.

Mendoza was not even on Cal’s radar until Martin, a four-star quarterback, opted to de-commit from Cal in September 2021 after being the Bears’ highest-rated commitment several months earlier.

Since then Martin has spent three seasons at UCLA and one at Maryland, totaling one career start, before transferring to Ohio State for the 2026 season.  He’ll be the Buckeyes’ No. 4 or 5 quarterback this year and will compete for a starting job in 2027, although he’s a long shot to land that job.

In any case, Cal desperately needed a quarterback for the class of 2022 after Martin de-committed from Cal.

Musgrave, the Golden Bears quarterback coach at the time, heard of this kid from Miami, then visited Mendoza, and ultimately called him about two weeks before signing day to offer him a scholarship, which Mendoza leaped on late in the recruiting process. He signed on February 2, 2022.

Mendoza spent his freshman season on the Cal scout team, and was No. 3 on the quarterback depth chart in his second season, behind a pair of transfers, Sam Jackson V and Ben Finley.

When neither quarterback provided the offense Cal needed, head coach Justin Wilcox decided in a surprise move to give Mendoza a shot as the starter in the sixth game of 2023 against 15th-ranked Oregon State even though he had never completed a pass as a collegian.

Cal lost its first four games with Mendoza as a starter, but he showed promise late in the season, then won a preseason competition to be the starter in 2024.

He became a Cal hero when he directed a 98-yard, fourth-quarter drive for the winning score against Stanford in 2024, and his postgame interview became the stuff of Cal legend.

He was sacked 41 times while at Cal, but he proved his toughness and courage in the pocket while playing for the Golden Bears.

“He’s accurate downfield, and he’s fearless in the pocket. That’s why I think he’ll be successful. Even going back to his two years at Cal, where it’s a dirty pocket, he’s got guys in his face, he’s getting messed up at Cal, and still delivering throwing seam balls while he’s getting smoked. He’s comfortable with being pressured,” an anonymous scout told The Athletic.

But the thought of him possibly turning Cal into a top-25 team in 2025 was erased when he entered the transfer portal and wound up at Indiana, which put the finishing touches on a player who became the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NFL draft.