NEW YORK — Fernando Mendoza, the enthusiastic quarterback of No. 1 Indiana, won the Heisman Trophy on Saturday night, becoming the first Hoosier to win college football’s most prestigious award since its inception in 1935.

Mendoza claimed 2,362 points, including 643 first-place votes. He beat Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia (1,435 points), Notre Dame running back Jeremiyah Love (719 points) and Ohio State quarterback Julian Sayin (432 points).

Mendoza guided the Hoosiers to their first No. 1 ranking and the top seed in the 12-team College Football bracket, throwing for 2,980 yards and a national-best 33 touchdown passes while also running for six scores. Indiana, the last unbeaten team in major college football, will play a College Football Playoff quarterfinal game in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1.

Mendoza, the Hoosiers’ first-year starter after transferring from California, is the triggerman for an offense that surpassed program records for touchdowns and points set during last season’s surprise run to the CFP.

The final voting totals for the Heisman Trophy 🏆 pic.twitter.com/DA5Qkg76xw

— ESPN College Football (@ESPNCFB) December 14, 2025

A redshirt junior, the once lightly recruited Miami native is the second Heisman finalist in school history, joining 1989 runner-up Anthony Thompson. Mendoza is the seventh Indiana player to earn a top-10 finish in Heisman balloting and it marks another first in program history — having back-to-back players in the top 10. Hoosiers quarterback Kurtis Rourke was ninth last year.

Quarterbacks have won the Heisman four of the last five years, with two-way player Travis Hunter of Colorado ending the run last season.

The Heisman Trophy presentation came after a number of accolades were already awarded. Mendoza was named The Associated Press player of the year earlier this week and picked up the Maxwell and Davey O’Brien awards Friday night while Love won the Doak Walker Award.

THE CONFIDENT COMMODORE

Pavia threw for a school-record 3,192 yards and 27 touchdowns for the Commodores, who were pushing for a CFP berth all the way to the bracket announcement. He is the first Heisman finalist in Vanderbilt history.

Generously listed as 6 feet tall, Pavia led Vanderbilt to its first 10-win season along with six wins against Southeastern Conference foes. That includes four wins over ranked programs as Vandy reached No. 9, its highest ranking in The Associated Press Top 25 since 1937.

Pavia went from being unrecruited out of high school to junior college, New Mexico State and finally Vanderbilt in 2024 through the transfer portal.

Brash and confident, the graduate student from Albuquerque, New Mexico, calls himself “a chip on the shoulder guy” and he was feisty off the field, too: He played his fourth Division I season under a preliminary injunction as he challenges NCAA eligibility rules; he contends his junior college years should not count against his eligibility, citing the potential losses in earnings from name, image and likeness deals as an illegal restraint on free trade.

Vandy next plays in the ReliaQuest Bowl against Iowa on Dec. 31.

THE LEADER OF THE BUCKEYES

Sayin led the Buckeyes to a No. 1 ranking for most of the season, throwing for 3,329 yards while tying for second in the country with 31 TD passes ahead of their CFP quarterfinal at the Cotton Bowl on Dec. 31.

The sophomore from Carlsbad, California, arrived at Ohio State after initially committing to Alabama and entering the transfer portal following a coaching change. He played four games last season before winning the starting job. He led the Buckeyes to a 14-7 win in the opener against preseason No. 1 Texas and kept the team atop the AP Top 25 for 13 straight weeks, tying its second-longest run.

Sayin was only the second Bowl Subdivision quarterback in the last 40 years to have three games in a season with at least 300 yards passing, three touchdowns, no interceptions, and a completion rate of at least 80%. West Virginia’s Geno Smith was the other in 2012.

Sayin follows a strong lineage of Ohio State quarterbacks since coach Ryan Day arrived in 2017. Dwayne Haskins (2018), Justin Fields (2019), C.J. Stroud (2021), and Kyle McCord (2023) averaged 3,927 passing yards, 40 TDs, and six interceptions, along with a 68.9% completion rate during their first seasons.

THE LOVE OF THE IRISH

The last running back to win the Heisman was Alabama’s Derrick Henry in 2015. Love put himself in the mix with an outstanding season for Notre Dame.

The junior from St. Louis was fourth in the Bowl Subdivision in yards rushing (1,372), fifth in per-game average (114.3) and third with 18 rushing touchdowns for the Fighting Irish, who missed out on a CFP bid and opted not to play in a bowl game.

He was the first player in Notre Dame’s storied history to produce multiple TD runs of 90 or more yards, a 98-yarder against Indiana in the first round of last year’s playoffs and a 94-yarder against Boston College earlier this season.

He padded his Heisman resume with a series of highlights displaying an uncanny ability to maintain his balance while hurdling defenders, spinning out of tackles or rolling off opponents. He teamed with Jadarian Price to create one of the season’s top running back duos, a combination that helped first-time starter CJ Carr emerge as one of the nation’s best young quarterbacks.

Source: Michigan begins query into athletic department

The University of Michigan has commissioned an investigation into its athletic department, centering on how numerous scandals have both occurred and been handled in recent years, a source told ESPN.

The University of Michigan has commissioned a full investigation into the practices and culture of its athletic department, centering on how numerous scandals have both occurred and been handled in recent years, a source told ESPN.

The firing of football coach Sherrone Moore this week will be a particular focus.

The investigation will be handled by Jenner & Block, a Chicago-based law firm that has done business with the school in recent years, including conducting the investigation into whether Moore had an inappropriate relationship with a staff member.

The Detroit News first reported the authorization of the investigation.

The firm opened an inquiry earlier this fall about the conduct of Moore and a staff member after the university received an anonymous tip, multiple sources told ESPN. Both Moore and the staff member denied the relationship and not enough evidence emerged to confirm it.

That changed Wednesday when, according to prosecutors in Washtenaw County, Michigan, the staff member told investigators it did occur and presented corroborating evidence. The staff member had, on Monday, broken off the multiyear relationship, according to prosecutors, but became concerned when Moore sent a flurry of texts and calls that were unreturned.

The university promptly fired Moore on Wednesday for the relationship. Soon after, Moore went to the staff member’s apartment just outside Ann Arbor and, according to prosecutors, barged in, grabbed kitchen scissors and some butter knives. He then threatened to kill himself.

“I’m going to kill myself,” Moore said, according to first assistant prosecutor Kati Rezmierski. “I’m going to make you watch. My blood is on your hands. You ruined my life.”

Moore, a married father of three, was charged Friday on three counts, including felony home invasion and misdemeanor charges of stalking in a domestic relationship and breaking and entering. Moore pleaded not guilty, and a probable cause hearing was set for Jan. 22, 2026.

Friday evening, after spending two nights in jail, Moore was released on a $25,000 bond with a GPS monitoring system and an order to receive counseling.

This is the latest in a series of scandals that have hit both the athletic department and the university as a whole. It includes a federal indictment in March of former offensive coordinator Matt Weiss, who is facing 24 charges of unauthorized access to computers and aggravated identity theft.

Prosecutors from the Eastern District of Michigan allege that Weiss ran a vast, multiyear effort to access the personal accounts of thousands of NCAA student-athletes across the country. He is charged with targeting specific female athletes to access personal and intimate photographs and videos.

Some of the alleged crimes, the feds say, occurred while Weiss was working inside the school’s football facility, Schembechler Hall from 2021 to 2022, and during a previous stint with the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens.

There have been additional run-ins with the NCAA rules, including the high-profile 2023 advanced scouting operation centered around former football staffer Connor Stalions. The NCAA hit the program with four years of probation and a fine that could reach over $30 million.

Former football coach Jim Harbaugh was sanctioned with numerous suspensions in his final years at the school for both the advanced scouting situation and recruiting violation. Harbaugh left to become the head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers in January 2024. Moore, who was promoted from offensive coordinator to succeed Harbaugh, has also twice been suspended by the NCAA. He still owes a one-game penalty, which was to be served in 2026, for deleting a thread of text messages sent to Stalions.

The series of scandals have put a spotlight on athletic department as a whole, including on director Warde Manuel, an alum and former player for the Bo Schembechler-led Wolverines of the late 1980s. Manuel has been on the job since 2016.

A high-level meeting of university officials was held Thursday evening, sources told ESPN, leading to intense speculation about Manuel’s future, but he remains on the job. The university would owe Manuel, 57, who signed a new five-year contract in December 2024, about $6.75 million if it dismissed him without cause.

On Thursday, interim university president Domenico Grasso, in a letter to the campus community, asked anyone with knowledge of the Moore situation to provide it via a confidential reporting system.

“Together, we will move forward with integrity and excellence, and reaffirm our dedication to serving the public good,” Grasso wrote.

Despite all of the tumult, the Wolverines’ athletic department is mostly thriving in competition, including the football program winning the 2023 national title. Currently both the men’s and women’s basketball teams are ranked in the top six nationally. Hockey is No. 1.

Meanwhile, the university has consistently set institutional records for the undergraduate application numbers in recent years, hitting 98,310 for the incoming freshman class this year, per federal filings from the university. That is up from 79,743 for 2022, an 18.9% jump in just three years.

Jenner & Block has a long-standing relationship with the university, including, in 2022, investigating an inappropriate relationship between then school president Mark Schlissel and a university employee that led to Schlissel’s removal from office.