A Latino or Hispanic Heisman? Diego Pavia and Fernando Mendoza represent more than their teams
Javier Pavia walked into his younger brother’s dormitory in Roswell, N.M., and immediately noticed the printed photo taped to the wall.
His brother, Diego, a true freshman quarterback at the New Mexico Military Institute, a public military junior college, wasn’t even 18. He was perceived to be too small, too stocky, with an arm that didn’t wow enough coaches to receive a single Division I offer out of Volcano Vista High in Albuquerque.
Even then, before he won the starting quarterback position as a true freshman in 2020, before he turned heads at New Mexico State and in the last two years as one of the most dynamic playmaking quarterbacks in the country, leading a surging Vanderbilt, Diego glanced at that photo every day when he woke up and every night when he went to sleep.
“It was a picture of the Heisman Trophy,” Javier said. “He’s believed it was possible since then.”
The current Heisman Trophy frontrunner plays a four-hour drive directly north of Vanderbilt’s campus, in Nashville. Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza just led the Hoosiers to an undefeated regular season and a berth in the Big Ten title game against Ohio State. For the first time, voting for the 2025 Heisman Trophy award, which since 2021 has had four finalists, opens Saturday evening and lasts 48 hours.
Mendoza will have one last game to impress voters. Pavia, fresh off the most decorated season in the history of Vanderbilt football, has made his case and is either even with or right on Mendoza’s heels in some mock polls.
The two likely finalists share some similarities. Both were underrecruited prospects out of high school. Both have taken circuitous paths to stardom in college football. And both represent something bigger than the most celebrated trophy in the sport: representation.
College football has had just two Heisman Trophy winners of Latino or Hispanic descent in its history. Former Stanford quarterback Jim Plunkett, who is of Mexican-American heritage, won in 1970. Former Alabama quarterback Bryce Young, whose grandfather was born in Mexico, won in 2021.
Mendoza grew up in Miami and is of Cuban descent. Both sets of his grandparents were born and raised in Cuba before immigrating to America. Pavia is of Hispanic descent; his mom’s side hails from Spain and his dad’s from Mexico. According to the NCAA’s demographic database, Latino and Hispanic players made up 3.3 percent of Division I football athletes in 2025. The 1,161 athletes of that descent have nearly doubled since the NCAA’s database started in 2012.
Half of this year’s Heisman finalists may come from historically underrepresented communities in college football.
That, family members said, will only help spur those in the next generation to believe they can one day stand in shotgun formation and chase lofty dreams of becoming a high-profile quarterback.
“We’re blessed to see what Diego has done and inspired this younger generation,” said Pavia’s mother, Antoinette Padilla. “They all believe they have a chance.”
Fernando Mendoza Sr. grew up playing football in South Florida. He played with Miami head coach Mario Cristobal at Christopher Columbus High. Hispanic or Latino kids playing high school football in Miami isn’t an earth-shattering development. There are plenty of players of that heritage who go on to play college football. But the quarterback position and all the hype, fame and acclaim that come with it changes the dynamic of how an individual is seen.
“I think it speaks to the attractiveness of football as a sport in this country and what it can bring to individual kids,” Mendoza Sr. said. “I don’t think of it as a Hispanic or Latino kid playing football or how it’s represented, I think of it more as, this sport offers so much to so many young boys around the country that it really attracts a level of commitment, camaraderie and it speaks more to the game as the individual.”
Fernando and his younger brother, Alberto, a redshirt freshman quarterback at Indiana, traveled to Cuba with his maternal grandparents in 2018 to see where their roots started. They did service work with Catholic charities in their grandfather’s hometown of Santiago. They took supplies and candy to elementary school kids. It was an eye-opening experience for them, said their mom, Elsa.
It showed the Mendoza boys “what just 90 miles and different government ideologies can make,” their dad said.
Latinos are football’s fastest-growing minority fan base in the country. Former NFL head coach and current Cal general manager Ron Rivera (of Puerto Rican and Mexican descent) said without the likes of Plunkett and former Latino football stars such as former Oakland Raiders quarterback Tom Flores (of Mexican-American descent) and Cincinnati Bengals offensive tackle Anthony Muñoz (also of Mexican-American descent), he wouldn’t have had as much self-belief that he could succeed. Rivera went on to be part of the vaunted 1985 Chicago Bears defense and coached for 27 years in the NFL.
This fall, Rivera and Muñoz helped launch the Hispanic Football Hall of Fame, which has already announced a partnership with the NFL.
“There is a lot of pressure, but to me, it’s about an opportunity, it’s about a challenge,” Rivera said. “That’s what this country is based on. This is supposed to be the country of opportunity. Not everybody’s opportunity is the same. It’s not always fair. But if you’ve got an opportunity and you don’t take it, that’s on you.”
Mendoza and Pavia certainly have. And while their sensational senior seasons have nabbed weekly headlines, they’re not the only star players of Latino or Hispanic descent in 2025. Texas Tech star linebacker Jacob Rodriguez is spearheading one of the best defenses in the country. Texas A&M’s KC Concepcion is one of the best receivers in the country. Tennessee quarterback Joey Aguilar has the Volunteers in the Top 25.
Former St. Louis Post-Dispatch sports columnist Jesus Ortiz said you cannot tell the story of college football this year without members of the Latino and Hispanic community and their starring roles in success. Ortiz is now the publisher of Our Esquina, an online publication dedicated to covering athletes of Latino and Hispanic descent around the country.
To have Mendoza and Pavia entrenched as candidates for one of the most recognized awards in sports can go a long way for the communities.
“I think that is uplifting, and I would argue, necessary at this point in time of our nation’s history,” Ortiz said. “Where, if you’re not watching ESPN and are instead watching CNN or CNBC, you’re seeing our people arrested and dragged. Citizens or non-citizens. This is huge because Latinos need to see themselves — like everybody else — as somebody that has a place in this country. And there’s nothing more American than baseball … and college football.”
When Pavia’s mom and siblings flew to Nashville for Vanderbilt’s season opener against Charleston Southern on Aug. 30, Javier saw something similar on the wall of his younger brother’s room in his apartment. Another photo of the Heisman Trophy.
“Waking up and seeing that every day will instill it in your mind and motivate you,” Javier said.
