Indiana QB Fernando Mendoza Joins Jimmy Fallon on Tonight Show: 'Where Champions Go'

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — With a wide, almost surprised, smile, Jimmy Fallon looked at Fernando Mendoza, looked back toward the crowd inside the Rockefeller Center in New York City and asked the question many around college football have pondered about Indiana the past two seasons.

"Fernando," Fallon said on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. "What are you doing here?"

Mendoza, the Hoosiers' redshirt junior quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner, quipped back.

"Jimmy, everybody knows The Tonight Show is where champions go," Mendoza said, grinning. "So, here I am."

It's never been a setting, never been close to a reality, for Indiana — until now.

Mendoza's appearance came three days after he led the No. 1 Hoosiers (16-0) to their first undefeated season and first national championship with a 27-21 win over Miami at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens.

The victory, Mendoza said, was particularly surreal due to the paths he, and several of his teammates, took to reach the championship stage Monday night.

"Well, we finally got coach Cignetti to smile," Mendoza said. "So, that was the biggest accomplishment. No, but for real, Indiana's been predominantly basketball, and football has been in purgatory for the longest time.

"And our team, with coach Cignetti and a whole bunch of under-recruited guys, guys who have always been doubted their entire lives, now finally marked as national champions — it means the world to all of us."

Mendoza won Offensive Player of the Game in the national championship after going 16-for-27 passing for 186 yards through the air and adding a decisive 12-yard rushing touchdown on fourth-and-5 in the fourth quarter to push Indiana's lead to two scores, which ultimately proved insurmountable for the Hurricanes.

Fallon inquired about Mendoza's run, which included re-routing, bouncing off contact and a lunging dive across the goal line that will be forever part of the Hoosiers' historical fabric.

For Mendoza, a pass-first quarterback, Indiana offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan calling a designed quarterback run on the biggest play of the season — and, subsequently, in program history — was initially met with skepticism.

Ultimately, Mendoza's Heisman instincts took over.

"At first, I'm like, 'Okay, here we go,'" Mendoza said. "And I was supposed to run left. And all of a sudden, some instinct tells me, 'Let's run right.' So, it's like when you miss your exit on maps, and you're like, 'Oh shoot, here we go.' But luckily, it was the exit to a touchdown.

"I saw these huge football players in front of me, and I was like a human pinball machine. I was like boom, boom, bang, getting banged up. And all the sudden, I'm in the air, like, 'Might as well reach for the touchdown, because I'm so banged up, I don't know if I'll be able to get up after. So, here we go.'"

Mendoza got up, and has barely had a moment to rest since. He took part in the winner's press conference Tuesday morning in Miami, held a meet and great at Dick's Sporting Goods on Wednesday evening in Bloomington and then appeared on The Tonight Show on Thursday in New York City.

The Miami native's stay didn't last long — he joined Fallon for just over four minutes — but after a season spent breaking records, including being the first Indiana player to win Big Ten Quarterback of the Year, first Heisman winner and winning the program's first national championship, he found enough time to break a few more.

Eight, to be exact.

To close his appearance on The Tonight Show, Fallon tossed records in the air and directed Mendoza to throw football's at them. Mendoza, with a smile, joked it was his NFL Combine. Fallon responded Mendoza had nothing to worry about — he'd already gotten the job at the next level.

But as Fallon threw records, Mendoza did what he's done all year: Break records in efficient fashion — no matter the stage, the stakes, the viewership or the environment.