Alberto Mendoza is about to get his first college start, and Georgia Tech is already seeing the kind of obsessive preparation that made him hard to miss inside the program.
The Yellow Jackets open Thursday night against Colorado at 8 pm ET on ESPN, the featured game in college football’s four-day Labor Day weekend kickoff. For Mendoza, it’s the first chance to step into the spotlight that has followed his family name, but Georgia Tech coaches say he has been living in the building like a player determined to master every inch of the offense.
Chris Weinke, Georgia Tech’s quarterbacks coach and co-offensive coordinator, said Mendoza has turned football into the only real topic of conversation since arriving on campus.
“(The Heisman ceremony) was the one time that I've had a conversation with him that wasn't just strictly football,” Weinke said. “Ever since he stepped foot on campus here, every single conversation has been about football.”
That intensity has shown up everywhere. Mendoza is in the facility early, stays late and keeps himself around the staff before and after meetings.
Weinke and co-offensive coordinator George Godsey, who is in his first year in Atlanta after 15 years in the NFL, have been fielding a steady stream of questions. Head coach Brent Key said he went home and told his wife that Mendoza and Godsey “have their own little love language.”
The habit isn’t new. Dave Dunn, the head coach at Christopher Columbus High in Westchester, Fla., said Alberto used to have lunch with him every day for two years after Fernando left for college, and the conversations never wandered far.
“Everyone's like, ‘Oh, you must have had these really deep, meaningful conversations,” Dunn told SN. “I go, ‘No, we talked about football and pretty much football only.’”
Dunn also watched Mendoza handle the pressure of replacing Fernando as Columbus’ starting quarterback. He lost only one game when healthy, a 42-35 defeat to the No. 1 team in the nation.
Over two seasons as a starter, he set the school’s passing records, helped deliver the most wins in a single season and took the team to the state championship in Florida’s largest classification. He was the state Player of the Year as a junior, and he finished those two years with more than 70 percent completions, 58 touchdowns and 13 interceptions.
Still, the recruiting path did not match the résumé. Big-time offers never piled up.
Mendoza committed to Curt Cignetti at James Madison, then followed him to Indiana before enrolling. He backed up Kurtis Rourke in Year 1 in Bloomington, then Fernando in Year 2.
When it came time for him to take over, he was passed over again at the FBS level and ended up at Georgia Tech after what amounted to a quick recruiting courtship.
Dunn said Mendoza has a memory that doesn’t let much go.
“He keeps all the receipts, I’ll put it that way,” Dunn said. “He’ll remind me years later of something I said, or something that transpired in practice that bothered him out of nowhere. He remembers everything.”
That kind of recall is part of why Georgia Tech is comfortable piling so much on his plate. Key said the staff is leaning into the quarterback’s ability to handle multiple plays, formations and schemes as the Jackets try to replace Haynes King.
“In all my years of coaching, we've not put this much volume in ever, and that's a credit to (Mendoza) because he can handle it,” Weinke said.
Mendoza calls himself a perfectionist and says he never feels fully caught up. He’s also comparing notes with Fernando, who is learning a pro-style offense with the Las Vegas Raiders this summer.
“It's it's kind of funny because (Fernando) is learning a Klint Kubiak scheme,” Alberto said. “We talk about some of the same protections, some of the same concepts, just comparing those things.
‘What do you think about this? He's like, ‘Oh, this is what we're doing for this, this, this.’
So I just get a another another view, another opinion on how to do something and how to see it. So it's been amazing.”
Key has tried to keep the outside noise in check, noting Mendoza has not started a college game yet. Even so, he named him the starter in the spring and made clear there would be no fall competition for the job. Weinke said Mendoza has already set the standard inside the facility, and while he won’t predict how the season will go, he’s certain about the work behind it.
“He’s competitive as hell,” Weinke said. “ And that will shine through when he is on the football field.”
Mendoza also showed he can laugh at himself. At an August press conference, he was asked to imitate Godsey and responded with a deep voice: “Alberto!
We’ve gotta see that. Come on!”
Now the college football world gets its first real look at the next Mendoza.
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