Jayden Maiava of USC, Dante Moore of Oregon, and Julian Sayin of Ohio State all played a full Big Ten football season in 2025. Josh Hoover of Indiana did not. He was with TCU last year. This instantly makes Hoover one of the most compelling and consequential figures in the Big Ten in 2026.
Those of us who follow West Coast football knew that Fernando Mendoza was a good player at California. With Curt Cignetti's coaching and Indiana's overall talent, Mendoza was placed in a position to succeed. He had in Indiana what he lacked in Berkeley as a Golden Bear.
The thought process for Cignetti and Indiana with Josh Hoover is similar to what we saw with Mendoza. Take a talented player away from TCU - a medicore team and a struggling program - and put him in Bloomington with other well-coached Hoosiers. The hope for Indiana is that Hoover takes off much as Mendoza did.
Purely as an athlete, Josh Hoover can compare with Fernando Mendoza. He can run. He can throw. He can make plays. However, Mendoza was special - elite and even legendary - as a crunch-time performer. Mendoza got bigger, not smaller, in late-game pressure situations. He shrugged off huge mistakes in multiple games. He could play poorly for a quarter or two but then regroup and deliver when his team needed it. The mental toughness of Fernando Mendoza, shown on his iconic touchdown run to win the national championship against Miami, is what we can't assign to Josh Hoover right now. Hoover needs to show he has the inner steel Mendoza displayed. Until then, it's all speculation.
Josh Hoover has not earned the benefit of the doubt. Curt Cignetti, however, has. It's a question of whether the coach can lift the quarterback or if the QB drags down the best coach in college football. The way this situation breaks in Indiana will have a profound domino effect on the Big Ten, and very possibly USC, in 2026.
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This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: Big Ten season preview: Josh Hoover is a wild card for Indiana
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