BLOOMINGTON — On the same day Indiana football launched a Heisman campaign of sorts for Fernando Mendoza, the quarterback made an appearance Monday afternoon on the Pat McAfee Show.
Mendoza’s coach Curt Cignetti has been a frequent guest on the show during his tenure with the host championing his fellow Pittsburgh native’s success.
McAfee touched on a variety of topics during Mendoza’s appearance — his experience in the transfer portal, Omar Cooper Jr.’s game-winning catch against Penn State, his NFL idols, Cignetti’s motivational tactics — without ever directly asking him about the Heisman at all.
Here’s a full transcript of Mendoza’s appearance:
Indiana football quarterback Fernando Mendoza looks back on Curt Cignetti’s recruiting pitch
“Indiana and coach Cignetti, really sold me on becoming the best Fernando Mendoza possible and also having my little brother here Alberto Mendoza, I was able to get the good, the bad and the ugly of the situation. The transfer portal nowadays is like speed dating, and there were a couple of other blue bloods in the mix, but with the way that I saw Alberto develop and coach Cignetti sold me on, ‘I don’t have a crystal ball, I don’t know what’s going to happen this season, but I promise you that if you come to my school instead of the other schools that you will be the best Fernando Mendoza quarterback you can become.’ At that point, I was sold. Let’s go, I’m ready to be a Hoosier.”
Indiana football quarterback Fernando Mendoza on his NFL idols and Daniel Jones’ bloody mouth
“Yeah, there’s a ton of quarterbacks, past, present and even in the future in college that I look and watch their film. Past, I would say Tom Brady, that’s my guy. I grew up watching him. He’s my football idol, my parents are my character model and idol, but Tom Brady is my football idol. Funny enough, I was actually able to talk to Daniel Jones, my fellow Indiana quarterback this past week, and actually in the Wisconsin game I got a little bit of a black eye here, I was trying to be like him and get the bloody mouth and stuff, but wasn’t able to.”
Fernando Mendoza breaks down Omar Cooper Jr.’s game-winner against Penn State
“Catch of the year, that guy literally saved us the game. What a fantastic catch, what a fantastic play, for sure the best catch of this season. When we first stepped on the field, you hear Mo Bamba rocking. You feel the stadium pulse. Everyone says Beaver Stadium is loud and we really felt it on the field. Overcoming a sack on the first play, everybody bouncing back, great resilience throughout the drive, great protection from the o-line, great catches by all the receivers and tight ends then we have the catch of the year at the end. I know Omar, he played basketball and he’s from Indiana. … I just tried to put it up there so he could get an alley-oop dunk or a rebound and he did. At first I think, usually you see the back foot always go down first then the foot closer. He somehow levitated his foot to have this imaginary cushion, which I still believe is God, all the glory to God, then his other foot tapped, not even on the white, on the little grass. We have our offensive captain, Pat Coogan, after with everyone going crazy, just pointing at the spot and telling the ref, ‘He’s in, he’s in.’ I thought we had to go back out for fourth down, but once I saw the replay and coach Cignetti wail his arms in the air.”
Indiana football quarterback Fernando Mendoza discusses his talented receiver group
“As a quarterback, it’s such a luxury to play with such great receivers, Elijah (Sarratt) they call him Waffle House, the man. Omar Cooper we just saw him make the catch of the year. E.J. Williams, a fantastic receiver. And now Charlie Becker, funnily enough, he’s my roommate. He’s Alberto and my roommate. It’s great to see him out there making catches, he had a great catch that actually got superseded by Omar’s catch, the catch before it. He had a great fade ball, a little back-shoulder high-point catch against Penn State and it just speaks to the culture we have here at Indiana. It’s always the next man up mentality. It’s always supporting each other. Elijah is the main guy on the sideline coaching our other receivers up, motivating them, along with everyone else that is banged up.”
How does Curt Cignetti keep Indiana football players motivated? Rat poison
“Coach Cignetti coming from that Nick Saban tree, he really uses and coined the term rat poison. He makes sure to never keep you complacent and always keep you hungry. Coach Cig is always pushing you at practice, if we had a sloppy practice on the offensive side, you’ll hear about it and I think he does a great job motivating us, not only when we are up, but when we are down. During the Oregon game, I threw a pick-six to tie the game. Oregon at that time was the No. 3 team in the nation. He came up to me and said, ‘Let’s have some fun, you’re good.’ At that point, it made myself go into the present moment, go into a zen moment and I was able to lead the game-winning drive and score a touchdown. Coach Cignetti not only has, the hard ass mentality that he’s always going to keep us hungry and keep us away from the rat poison, but he also knows when to motivate us. For example, like Wisconsin at halftime.”
Fernando Mendoza on raising money for the MS Society
“Yeah, my mom is my light and inspiration. When I had no offers coming out of high school, she was saying, ‘Hey, keep on praying, it’s going to come.’ Everything that she’s basically told me that’s going to come to light, has always (worked out). She’s my inspiration and positive hope, to see her fight multiple sclerosis, whenever she’s fighting and having a hard day, it gives myself no excuse if I have a bad practice or a bad lift, to watch more film. She is my why, and I do it for her. Just to have the opportunity and platform to raise more awareness for her in order to partner with the national MS Society, in order to raise awareness and give money to people that can’t afford the treatments cause there’s no cure at this point. It’s really special, it gives me a bigger view of why I’m playing football.”
Michael Niziolek is the Indiana beat reporter for The Bloomington Herald-Times. You can follow him on X @michaelniziolek and read all his coverage by clicking here.
