Cal Football: `The Greenest Pasture is Here' - Quarterback Fernando Mendoza

The redshirt freshman from Miami says he's happy in Berkeley and plans to remain a Golden Bear.

Fernando Mendoza was 11 years old, playing his first year of tackle football with the South Miami Gray Ghosts.

Mendoza had been inspired to try the game a few years earlier after watching Tom Brady in the Super Bowl.

“It looked like he was having fun,” Mendoza said. “It wasn’t so much about football because at that point I didn’t understand the game.

“But you saw him on the sidelines, talking to his teammates. I thought this looks like a great team sport. And I could be that guy, the guy on the sidelines amping everybody up, being a leader, rallying the troops.”

Mendoza has become that guy for Cal as a relentlessly upbeat redshirt freshman quarterback who will start his sixth career game Saturday in the 126th Big Game at Stanford.

But it almost didn’t happen. That first season with the Gray Ghosts wasn’t what Mendoza had in mind. His quarterback dreams seemed to be going nowhere.

“At one point I wanted to quit,” he said. “I was third-string defensive end, second-string tight and third- or four-string quarterback.

“It was frustrating because I was one of those players who only got to play the minimum five plays. I felt a sense of negativity in myself and I was being a little bit of a pouter and with a sense of pity.”

His parents, Fernando and Elsa Mendoza, told him no.

Cal quarterback Fernando Mendoza and his father / Photo by Darren Yamashita, USA Today

“He’s like, `I’m done,’ ” his dad recalled. “I told him you can quit at the end of the season.”

His mandate in the meantime: Stick with it and give it your full effort.

A funny thing happened on the way to Mendoza’s early retirement from the sport.

“I gave maximum effort and I ended up playing. The next year, even more,” he said.

It’s a lesson Mendoza takes with him to everything he encounters.

“That’s what my parents instilled in me: Don’t quit. Because if I had quit football, who knows what else I would have quit on in life.”

The challenges kept coming

Mendoza transferred into Columbus High School in Miami as a sophomore. He began the season as the fourth-stringer on a team where no one knew him. By season’s end, he was starting.

Mendoza grew up one-half mile from the University of Miami campus. His mother earned her undergrad and MBA degrees from the school and Fernando attended their football camps.

“I was dying to go there,” Mendoza said.

But the Hurricanes didn’t recruit him. Alabama invited him to walk on as a non-scholarship player, but Mendoza was set to attend Yale until Cal came calling during his senior season at Columbus High.

“I was a two-star recruit and Miami had all the national recruits and quarterbacks they wanted,” he said. “Coach (Justin) Wilcox and the other offensive coaches, those were the ones who took a chance on me.”

Mendoza arrived at Cal as no better than the third-string QB entering 2022 fall camp. He was redshirted then watched as offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave — who had recruited him — was fired.

His mother recalled the talk at that point. “Everybody was asking, `Are you going to transfer?’ And Fernando was like, `Why would I transfer. I believe in myself and I’m going to work hard to win my spot.”

Jake Spavital became the new OC and brought in two transfer quarterbacks who moved to the front of the line. Sam Jackson V became the starter and Ben Finley was No. 2.

Mendoza worked and waited.

October arrived and the Bears were about to begin a stretch of four straight Pac-12 games against AP Top-25 opponents. The coaching staff made a quarterback change, opting for Mendoza because they saw consistency in his practice performance they weren’t getting from Jackson or Finley.

“My whole mindset was once they put me in there, they’re never going to take me out,” Mendoza said. “I knew once I stepped on the field I was going to be the solidified starter for the rest of the year and the next coming years.”

The Bears lost 52-40 to then-No. 15 Oregon State, but the offense produced more points in Mendoza’s debut than any previous Cal quarterback generated in his first game as a freshman.

His tenure began with a gauntlet

“I wish he had an easier game for the first one,” his mother, Elsa, said. “Nothing’s ever come real easy to him. He wasn’t necessarily the most athletic kid in the group. He’s always had to work really hard for what he wants. Even academically, he had to work really hard to graduate near the top of his class with honors.

“He might not have started as the best, but he wouldn't stop working until he was the best at whatever he put his mind to. He’s not scared of hard work — it’s part of the reason he’s successful.”

Successful is putting mildly — Mendoza compiled a 5.2 grade-point average in high school.

 “He’s always going to be the most prepared kid in the room,” his dad said.

Three more defeats to heavily favored opponents followed, including a painful 50-49 loss to USC, before the Bears ended their skid with a 42-39 win over Washington State last week. That was their third 40-point performance with Mendoza at the controls.

In his five starts, he has completed 61 percent of his passes for 975 yards with eight touchdowns and four interceptions. He’s also rushed for two TDs.

“Love the energy that he has,” Spavital said. “It’s comforting for me because every day he’s learning and growing. It’s just going to keep building, all the experience he’s going to gain.”

Spavital, who coached Davis Webb in his first stop at Cal in 2016, also has worked with the likes of Johnny Manziel, Kyler Murray and Geno Smith.

Referring to Mendoza, Spavital said, “He’s not even close to his potential right now.”

The WSU win also kept alive Cal’s hopes of becoming bowl eligible. At 4-6 overall and 2-5 in the Pac-12, the Bears need wins over Stanford and UCLA to have a shot at a bowl game.

“I want to win the next two games,” Mendoza said, “and after that I want to win the bowl game and then I win more games next year and be the best quarterback I can become. And one of the top in the nation.”

And Mendoza is adamant that he intends to chase his ambitions — including the NFL — at Cal.

Parents say Mendoza is happy and staying put

The Bears next fall will move into the Atlantic Coast Conference, whose members include Miami. That stirred up talk some that perhaps Mendoza would transfer back home.

“It’s not happening,” said his mother, Elsa. “What he starts, he finishes. He’s not the type to cut out midway.”

“He understands what a Cal degree is,” his father said. “He wants to play football but he’s not a mercenary.”

Mendoza feels a loyalty to Wilcox because the Bears believed in him when others didn’t. He’s also come to the conclusion that Cal is the right place for him. As an academic sophomore he was accepted into the prestigious Haas School of Business.

Mendoza also loves the Bay Area weather and appreciates the culture in the Cal locker room that allowed the team to stick together through four defeats, emerging with its goals intact.

“My opinion has not changed on this and I believe it will not change,” he said. “Looking back on it, if I had any offer in the nation, I would choose Cal.

“The greenest pasture is here. I think this is the best situation for me.”

Mendoza understands his journey is just beginning. He continues to draw inspiration from his idol Brady, who went from being the 199th pick in the 2000 NFL draft to one of the game’s greats. He also relates to the Bills’ Josh Allen, who attended junior college before playing at Wyoming, and to the 49ers’ Brock Purdy, the last player chosen in the 2022 draft.

And his parents provide an example that drives him. His father is the pediatric emergency director at the Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami.

“My Dad worked really hard through medical school. He told me he wasn’t always the brightest doctor, however his goal was to be the best doctor,” Fernando said.

“I’m playing football in front of thousands of people, however he’s dealing with life and death in his hands every day. It kind of shows how I’ve learned to handle pressure situations.”

Cover photo of Cal quarterback Fernando Mendoza by Darren Yamashita, USA Today

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo