Hi, you doing everybody.

I'm Ken Bike up and welcome to the Piegs Podcast.

Have you gotten used to the idea that Indiana is Big ten champs?

I know when I last talked to you about IU football on Saturday night early Sunday morning, it was all surreal.

It was weird.

It was something completely, I don't want to say unexpected.

Obviously, they had that opportunity going into the game.

But at the start of the season, if you'd have said we'd have been here, not many people would have believed you.

But we're here.

Indiana is the number one ranked team in the country, the top seed in the college football Playoff, and doesn't have to play until the Rose Bowl January.

First, that's all the good news.

This weekend.

You have Fernando Mendoza.

It's going to be in New York, likely collecting the Heisman Trophy.

There's you know, some talk about Pavia, the kid from Vanderbilt, being a guy who could steal it away from Mendoza.

What I follow a lot on these kinds of things, uh is the the odds makers, and Mendoza is an overwhelming favorite on that.

And again, you're the quarterback of the number one ranked team.

In the country.

You are the quarterback of the only undefeated team in the country.

You are you have multiple Heisman moments along the way.

The Heisman Trophy is, it doesn't go to the best college player.

It goes to the most hyped guy, the quarterback usually of the best team.

That's just how it all works.

You know, it's not the end all be all, but you know, for Indiana, this is something that has never happened to them before.

So you know, I, for one, I'm pulling for Fernando to do it just because it's never happened in Indiana football history.

And let's check off one more box on the things that have never happened here at IU that actually happened here in the twenty twenty five season.

Of course, all the good news with Fernando with which which I mean, by the way, Fernando has the opportunity to win so many other awards, Walter Camp Award.

You already have Kurt Signetti been named National Coach of the Year for the second straight year, Big Ten Coach of the Year second straight year.

So many Indiana players on first team All American lists.

Those are all great things.

And of course you have all the momentum of being undefeated before you go into the college football playoff and you've got plenty of time to rest up and heal.

But then, of course you have the flip side of Stephen Daily.

Uh, he's not going to be part of this college football playoff run because he injured his knee during the postgame celebrations.

When I first started to hear talk about this very thing, I was like, come on, what what is this?

And all kinds of things go through your head, you know, Okay, so this is something that didn't happen on the field, that happened in the postgame celebration.

Was he acting the fool?

Did he fall off of a bench?

You know what?

What?

What exactly is it?

Is he he?

You know what?

What was this?

And then video emerges of him just high five and fans and he jumps up and he is high five in people, and the video if this is when the injury happened, it shows him doing something completely innocent, and there's a there's the biggest part of me just thinks of how cruel.

This is how life can be cruel.

And I'm not talking about a football thing.

I'm talking about for Steven Daily, that here's a kid who has poured his heart and soul into playing football for IU, has been a great player and really done all he can to help him and his teammates be successful this year.

And then to be taken out of the equation, not by doing something stupid, not by doing something silly, but just celebrating with fans, innocently celebrating with fans, and he gets hurt.

It's just cruel.

It's just playing cruel and it makes me incredibly sad.

But the fact that he was doing it without doing something stupid makes it hurt so much worse.

But there's also part of it it's like, well, good, at least he wasn't acting the fool and that's a positive as well, because then you don't have to go, well, you know, look at that.

I just feel so bad for the kid, and I feel bad for Indiana football.

They do have time to adjust, but he's he's gonna be missed, there's no question, because he's been such a big part of what the Hoosiers do.

Now.

Kurt Signetti his approach to all of this is, let's just go ahead and next man up, Let's keep rolling.

When we talked to Sig on Sunday afternoon.

Last Sunday afternoon, his comment looking back was that they suffered no serious injuries on the field during the game, so there were still some tests that were to come out with daily.

So that's why you gotta kind of uh sometimes coaches play lawyer games, uh with when it comes to injuries.

But his focus is I have time to prepare him, to get him ready.

So what I'm gonna do normally I bring the whole press conference about ten minutes.

Sig went longer than that.

We're also gonna hear from Fernando Mendoza, who was brought to the press room at the basketball game on Tuesday to talk about this weekend with the Heisman Trophy.

That interview went about seventeen minutes.

I'm not going to make you guys sit through the entire thing.

What I'm going to do is get you chunks of both Signetti's press conference, some questions from Mendoza, and be able to let you hear a little bit of what they said, not the full thing, but a little bit of it, because otherwise I'm choking up, you know, thirty five minutes of your time listening to press conferences.

I don't want to sit in a press conference for thirty five minutes, and I'm quite certain that you don't either.

But we'll bring you sections of that and be able to give you at least a little flavor of kind of the things we're talking about.

So we're gonna start with Kurt Signetti, who speaks to the media after the college football playoff rankings and all of that came out on Sunday from the team room at Memorial Stadium.

Okay, guys, a great win last night.

Was a real heavyweight brawl.

Proud of the way our team played.

I thought we really played well on defense and made timely plays on offense.

Special teams was washed, but it was a great effort.

I think when you look at the game, third and fourth down, we were seven to thirteen.

There four twelve.

We had five sacks, they had three.

You know, take away the hell, Mary.

At the end of the game, our defense limited their offense to two hundred and seventy six yards out rushed them one eighteen to fifty eight.

So it wasn't a.

Perfect game, a hard fought game, great win for the program.

Hey, coach, obviously, you'd like to go through the season with no injuries on any spot, especially the old line he had driven to go down.

Adamo Johnny stepped in, has played well, came in last night for bray Ledge.

Just talk about what you guys have seen from him and just your thoughts for his future in the program.

Yeah.

I think he's good young prospect.

You know, we inserted him when Evans went down, and I saw him improve every week.

And uh you know, he played quite a bit last night at right guard and uh you know, Benson and zen Con split the reps at right tackle, and uh you know, Drew Evans was back, and uh so it gives us seven guys right now.

And uh you know, it was last year we were at six and then when Drew went down, we really were at five.

And uh so I think he's got a good future.

He's got a lot of athletic ability.

Uh you know, hadn't played a whole lot of football.

You can see him improving.

Yeah, hey, Kurt over here, last year, all four teams that had buys lost the thirty day break.

And obviously a team will be uh the team you play.

We have played in events.

How do you prepare for that?

To get your team ready up to game speed?

Just how do you prepare for that so that that trend doesn't continue.

Yeah, it's a three and a half week break.

You know, we put out two tentative calendars based on where we might when we might be playing, So now we know, you know, we'll treat the first half of this just like any off week.

You know, we'll practice enough to stay sharp, get the rest and recovery in, uh, get get the weights in, and then once we figure out who we're going to play, which will be you know, Friday night with the nineteenth, I think, uh, then we'll be able to kind of hone in and go into game plan mode and game plan practice mode, and so that we will essentially get two full weeks in of opponent prep.

You know, we'll get a Monday through Thursday in and then get a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday in here and then we've all been through Thursday, once Thursday and Friday.

We'll get that when we get out there.

I know you're not a big behind the curtains guy, but can you talk to us a little bit about just what last night and the locker room was like with your coaching staff, and the ride home and that and just just sharing and enjoying that night together.

Yeah, I mean, it was obviously a great win, lot of emotion on the field.

It was a little bit of a different setup post game with the stage and some of those kind of things.

So we never really had the opportunity to get the team together in the locker room afterwards because it was you know, it was close to an hour before I got back in there with the different interviews and such, and some of the players too, so but you could see the celebration both on the field and on the stage, and you know it was well earned.

You just called the performance last night not perfect for you guys, What does it say about your team that you can play not perfectly in stead will beat the number one team in the country at the time.

Well, they didn't play perfectly either, so you know, they missed a field goal that was kind of a chip shot down there at the end.

It could have tied the game, and you know, we missed Uh, we missed one which was uncharacteristic in the interception which led to their first score on a short field could have been prevented.

Uh, but it was.

It was a great effort.

When you play a great team, they're gonna make plays.

You're gonna make plays, and you just got to make one more than they do.

I think you said last night that the challenge now is just trying to humble this team.

How do you approach that?

Like, what do you use to try to humble them?

I said that kind of tongue in cheek a little bit, uh, you know, sort of be funny.

You know, we've got a lot of time here.

We're gonna meet with the team tomorrow for we won't practice tomorrow, and uh, you know, we'll be in normal off week mode here for almost two weeks, week and a half before we find out who our opponent actually is.

Then go into game plan mode, so we'll happen where we want them.

I mean, we got great character, kids and leadership on this team, and I have absolutely no question we rave play.

Do you have any update on Omar's health?

And then with Bryant Haynes, what is it about that connection with him and the defenders that just makes them so dominant parts of the opponent.

Omar will know a little bit more as we go.

We don't expect it to be anything.

We don't think there was anything that happened in the game that will be affect.

You know, our next game in terms of co Chains and the defense, you know, we attack, we move a lot upfront, TfL sacks, stop the run is the emphasis, and there's a lot of line movement, and we.

Were very disruptive.

And in fact, I just started.

The game before I came down.

I've gotten through about fifteen plays, but we hit the quarterback three the first ten plays and picked the one off early great play by lou Moore and the obviously twice they got down there in the low red and came away with maybe three points I think it was.

And it's just an attacking style play on defense and co Chains does a great job.

Yeah, coach, We're going to a story on just sort of the impact that your success has had on the town, the fan base, the university, et cetera.

I'm curious, what are some things that you've sort of experienced, seen, felt maybe community town.

Yeah, and you'd pray have to talk to people on the outside to get a better feel for that.

I hear it.

I just know that winning lifts all boats, and you know, in terms of fans, support in the stadium and donations in all parts of the university, you know, downtown in terms of you know, when you pack the stadium and bring a lot of people to Bloomington, that helps our sales, a lot of pride and who's your nation the largest alumni base you know in America, over eight hundred thousand people.

And you know, i'd say, right now the arrows point not been.

We've probably got a lot of momentum going in those kind of areas.

Coach Ologia.

Ten tackles last night than that pass breakup on third down?

How have you seen him grow as the season has gone on from building off of last season?

Yeah, good young player that played really well last night on a huge stage, and it just tells you a lot about him and two years remaining so key guy to keep around.

Every team is obviously different.

Every year is different.

But the experience of going through the college football playoff process last year, how is that going to help this team benefit even though they don't know who they're going to be playing for a.

Couple of weeks.

Yeah, you know, second time through you're always better.

This one's a little different because you've got a little more time off.

But like every other experience from our first year, you know, the returners all learn from those Some of the newcomers have been in this situation before, you know Zen and Coogan, So yeah, it's only going to help us.

And this is a different team that's overcome some hurdles that the last year's team didn't, you know.

So you know, we're Big Ten champs, beat the number one ranked team the country, beat the number two ranked team in the country at the time, on the road, proud of what we've accomplished.

So they're sig from the team room, relaxed, confident, smiling a little bit more than he used to, but still focused.

And I think the fact that there is so much time between the Big Ten Championship game and the Rose Bowl really makes a difference and gives everybody time to prepare and kind of come down from that high and then get back to it.

So he talked about humbling them and all that he said, he was kind of joking.

The key to me is if you beat the number one team and then you play the next week, you have to try to get that emotion and check very quickly.

This has some time to calm down a little bit and allow the team to refocus.

So I'm not worried about that come the Rose Bowl.

I feel that, you know, look, they've done a great job of never getting too high or too low to this point, but especially beating the number one team and becoming the number one team.

This gives you time to kind to calm down from that, get over that initial excitement and go forward with it.

Now here I wanted to bring you now Fernando Mendoza from the press room at assembly a Hall before the I Use whipping of Penn State in basketball on Tuesday.

Mendoza such a likable guy, such a likable kid, and just you know, smiling and happy to be here, kind of in amazement.

And he talks a little bit here about but how at the start of the year he was like, man, it sure would be cool if I could get to that point and to have somebody kind of admit some of the things that he did to where hey, here's a goal, but there isn't a lot of there is an arrogance behind it, you know, it is it is.

You know, hey, here's a goal, and he's reached the goal and he's pretty excited.

He has a damn good chance of winning on Saturday.

So here's Mendoza during his press conference with the media Tuesday at Assembly.

Hall, Fernanda, just just talk about the opportunity that you have on Saturday night.

I'm so blessed and honored to be in this position.

It is a real feeling.

There's a lot of speculation throughout the season and always like, wow, that'd be so cool.

But I know that going to this ceremony means so much for everybody here in Bloomington.

It means so much for my family, means so much to the team, especially having the opportunity to hopefully bring home the first Heisman in Indiana history.

It means so much to so many people.

So I think it's such a great kind of pat in the back for everybody over here in the city of Bloomington, with all their support that they've given myself.

As I just want to ask about, like the process for you for the next two weeks, because if I'm not mistaken, you've played in a Bowl game before, so you're kind of familiar with the sort of layoff.

But you've always been really process oriented.

You've always had sort of a sort of a strict regimen you want.

To stick to.

Now there's award shows, you don't know who you're going to play yet in the Rose Bowl.

Just how do you sort of approach the next few weeks as somebody who really values kind of that daily and weekly process but maybe has to change it up a little bit.

Now.

Yeah, I've only had the experience playing one bowl game before, and it was a December thirteenth Bowl game, so it was it was a very short turnaround.

However, listening to people with expertise such as coach Signetti, you know, and his mentor, coach Saban, They've always talked about giving yourself a little bit of a break, and so coach Signetti, I follow his process as he knows, and he's a head coach.

He's given this these two weeks is essentially by weeks which we're still working out.

We're still staying sharp in our fundamentals, still staying sharping my football Q and on my own free time, I will probably and I will watch some games with Oklahoma and Alabama just to get a feel for personnel and not do an extremely deep dive.

And as was bioweks, I'm sure I'll get bored and you know, watch a little bit more than I should of each opponent.

However, this week I'm really just focused on cultivating the moments with my teammates, really soaking it all in, staying sharp with my fundamentals and strengthening that bomb with my teammates.

Yeah.

For Nandi mentioned this was all kind of theoretical until last night.

You know, what was your process to sort of watch Did you watch the Countdown show?

How'd you kind of the night unfold for you?

And like how many text calls did you get?

Can you kind of take us through Monday night and what it was like when you were named finalists?

Yeah, for sure, I would say it all started when our team had a fantastic performance against Illinois.

It was a dominant performance on defense, domind performance by the offensive line, and just dominant coaching performance as well.

And after that, some of my friends sent it to me like, oh, you know, you're in the Heisman Race, and I was like, that's so cool.

You know, maybe I can show my kids, Hey, I was in the Heisman Race.

And fast forward to yesterday, my friends and I were all watching Monday night Countdown shower Greg for letting me know that i'd be announced there, and we were watching the show and ended up being announced and it was such a great moment and great feeling, and I got a lot of texts.

However, it did not amount to or even compared to any of the texts that I got, or I believe any of my other teammates got for winning the Big Ten Championship as the Heisman's great, but the only reason I'm up for the Heisman is because we're thirteen to no and we're Big Ten champs at the end of the day.

So I would say that I didn't get a couple of texts, however, nothing comparing to when we beat a hastate.

Fernando, you were committed to Yale and then you finally get that powerful offered.

Do you think back.

And think how much different it would have been if you'd just gone to Yale.

Yeah, I mean, I guess shout out yea.

They have a really good talent, you know, recruiting department or like, at least i'd like to think.

So it was funny because on my official visit to Yale, I took a picture with one of their Heisman trophies from a long time ago, I believe was at the thirties or forties.

That they want how to Heisman and they use it as a marketing prop.

But it was I took it, and it was kind of like more of a funny thing like wow, like look how cool it is.

I get the whole the Heisman and going back from the journey, it just speaks volumes that you know, I couldn't have done this by myself, and you know, I'm I'm shining now, but only because there's so many stars around me.

There's an analogy like the only reason we're able to see stars in the skies because the light reflects from all the different types of stars.

And I have so many stars around myself, whether it's my teammates, my coaches, my family, support staff, that I'm able to shine now in this light, and I'm just so happy for you know, everyone to be a part of this.

Left Fernando, if there was a time machine to go back to pee wee football, what message would you give yourself then as older Fernando Now.

As older Fernando, I would love to make my pee football self faint and telling me to get invited to the Heisman ceremony.

But I would definitely say always stay optimistic through it all.

My mother has been a huge inspiration for myself.

I've seen her fight every single day and how she remains optimistic.

Whether you know, a pet doesn't go as plan or a treatment doesn't go as planned, She's always remaining optimistic.

And I think that's something that I've carried through and been able to take from my mother, as you know, whatever it is, whether it's being a two star recruit, whether it's having you know, no scholarship offers going into my senior year, whether it's the troubles and tribulations through the transfer portal, it's always staying optimistic through it all.

And I really believe that that optimistic approach and that ability to be nimble and adapt to the situations has really helped me get to this point.

Fernando, Uh, you came here, you talked about coming here to challenge yourself to be a better player, to learn from coach Signetty.

Obviously, the Big ten was the goal.

The national championship is the goal.

But was the Heisman Trophy ever a goal?

Was it ever in your mind?

The evidently everybody knows that hemand Trumphy is is extremely iconic and it's the most prestigious award in all of college football.

And at that point, honestly always believed in myself.

However, my goal at that point would just being the best Fernando Mendoza possible.

And I actually hadn't told anybody this, but at the beginning of the year Indian and with Indiana, I saw you know, the lista that it was like top ten Heisman contenders and evidently I was not on there, and I was like, wow, like I want to make a goal to myself and really like it'd be so specially I prayed about, like imagine if I could just make the ceremony, Like how cool will that be?

You got to be able to take that for the rest of my life.

And so now that goal has come to fruition, I'm be able to share that to the people don't want to, you know, pre share that and it's such a it's such a cool moment I thought of it, but it was a little bit more of a dream and kind of a long range goal or a goal that you you reach a little farther than you think you could reach.

And at this point it has come to fruition.

And it really stems back to all the amazing people that have been here in Bloomington and really supporting the football team, whether it's the city, whether it's the fans, or whether it's the coaches.

And.

Yeah, so curtsying that he said you should win the Heisman.

In fact, he said it's a no brainer.

He's also said, with your preparation study, you might just be scratching the surface of what you can be.

How did you learn to prepare like you do?

And give us a few things that you're clearly you feel you're clearly better at now than you were saveing six months ago.

Yeah, it's a great question.

My whole thing is the best players are confident players.

So to backtrack, how do you become confident?

And it's preparing like no other.

When I first got my first shot to start a high school game or first shot to do a college game, my whole thing is, I'm gonna prepare like no other.

I'm gonna prepare to essentially exhaustion, so I know, whether the game goes fantastic or it goes terrible, I'm gonna be able to lay my head on the pillow at night, sleep tight, knowing that I did everything possible in my power to prepare.

And I think I've kept that process through every single game I've played, knowing to not live with regrets.

And I think that's a.

That's a big message that some mentors I've given myself is live You don't want to live on eggshells, but live on decisions that you will not regret, rather than you know, just say, you know, partying on a Thursday night.

Rather hey, let's let's study film, even if it's on the off season, just because I know, like in the future, you don't want to be like, wow, I wish I watched more film, or wow, I wish I were to eat in a little healthier so I could be my body could be helped far, or wow, I wish it would have gone to sleep earlier so I'd be more arrested and able to absorb all the information I'm getting from this amazing program.

And with myself, it's getting that and then also having a process with the great coaches around myself like Coach Signetti, Coach Shanahan and go Twimmer that have detailed this is what you got to do to be successful.

This is what you get to know to be successful.

You don't want to be out there have a analysis by paralysis, but at the same time, you want to know so much information that you're ready for every jab and every punch they give in order to play the best football possible.

You talked about the importance of decompression.

So whether you give yourself a day, a couple of days over this next couple of weeks to decompress, what does it look like for you to step away from the game.

What do you do when it's not watching film or going out and throwing extra passes?

Yeah, I would say decompression is extremely important.

However, my decompression is really it does have a lot to do with football, and i'd a new problems.

This is not a cliche answer.

I really do enjoy football all around, whether it's watching football, like last night, I was able to despite the Monday Night countdown announcement, I was able to watch the entire Monday Night football game, and that was a great joint pleasure because I just I just really like watching football.

And so whether it's watching some Oklahoma film or Alabama film, or Monday Night football, or there's you know, a bowl game coming up, you know, I really do enjoy watching football.

So I do a lot of that.

On my downtime.

I'll hang out with a lot of teammates.

Just came back from dinner with some teammates right now, and you know, have some of some more dinners and just hanging out with teammates after in these next couple of nights and other than that, it's yeah, I would say just just honestly hanging out with friends and watching football.

That's that's what my life consists of.

And that's I really have a lot of joy and get a lot of joy from that, from those relationships and aspiring to be the best because I know I have such a short window of opportunity here that I could do so much with Why waste this opportunity.

I don't want to look back when I'm thirty years old like, wow, if I would have studied more, I could have been a better player at this point.

I's such a short window of opportunity that most people, and do you quite honest like, as a kid, I've dreamed about So why not give it your all?

So there's Sig, there's Mendoza.

The Hoosiers have to wait for who they're going to play in the Rose Bowl.

It'll be either Alabama or Oklahoma.

Look, I'm not going to complain about who the Hoosiers have to play.

I they haven't they obviously they played Notre Dame last year.

People were arguing that they didn't belong in the College Football Playoff last year.

This year, there was no keeping them out of it.

It does feel to me that some of the seeding was done to try to challenge the Hoosiers, and you're talking about, Okay, we're gonna put Alabama there.

Meanwhile, I think it's Texas Tech.

They get to play either Oregon, who has already beaten, or James Madison.

To me, you could do some different things and you could have set up that match up to where here's the rematch with Oregon and here's James Madison, where Sig used to coach.

Could have done some things with that.

Maybe in the future reseating some things could be interesting.

Obviously isn't gonna impact Indiana this year, but I'm not gonna bitch about who Indiana is going to be playing.

That is your challenge.

Your next challenge is either going to be Alabama or Oklahoma.

Either one of them is going to be a tough game, and it should be.

It's the College football Playoffs.

This is supposed to be your best of the best, and Indiana is the number one ranked team in the country.

So I know how the seatings work.

I know, I know all of that.

One thing I'm certain of is that Fernando Mendoza is going to be prepared whoever Indiana plays.

Signetty's going to be prepared no matter who Indiana plays, And it's going to be an exciting season end whether it ends at the Rose bowlt or it goes on, it's going to be incredibly exciting.

There's so much football left ahead of the Hoosiers and now we just play the waiting game.

And that's not the worst thing in the world.

Worst thing in the world would be to be Michigan right now.

They fire their coach in some wild circumstances that you've probably heard the news.

If you haven't, go read the news.

It is a wild story and it really makes you feel and it made me appreciate what Indiana is going through right now and all the positive vibes that go along with it.

We haven't been quite in the depths of that that Michigan is doing over the years, but we've been unsuccessful having a stable program, a successful program one that is the story of sports, has been a ton of fun and uh, there's still a lot of excitement to be had.

What's all the time we have on the Peaks podcast this week, I want to thank you for listening, and I want to mind you to visit peaks dot com for the very best in IU football and basketball coverage.

You're gonna find anywhere nobody covers who's you recruited, bit and recruiting better than Jeff rab John's, Matt Weaver, Trevor Andershock, and Jared Kelly.

So come be a part of a thriving and exciting community at peaks dot com.

Folks, you are not going to be disappointed.

Folks are out of time, But for now and for Jeff, Matt, Trevor and Jared, I'm ken Bikoff saying thanks for listening.

Everybody,