With the Heisman Trophy in hand, Indiana star quarterback Fernando Mendoza returned to Bloomington, with eyes now fixed on the ultimate prize — winning a national championship. Here's the story, plus the complete video from his press conference.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. —Day after day last week, Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza basically got a national player of the year award just about every day. It culminated with winning the Heisman Trophy on Saturday in New York, rubbing elbows with the greats of the game.
Mendoza was back in Bloomington on Monday, understandably a little road weary. But he took the time to meet with the local media, answering questions for 12 minutes.
Awards week is over, and now it's time to get back to football. The Hoosiers, the No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff, don't play until Jan. 1 in the Rose Bowl, but their opponent will be determined on Friday night, when Oklahoma and Alabama meet in Norman, Okla.
"Yeah, this weekend was a great weekend, a great experience for my teammates and I,'' Mendoza said. "However, we understand that just like the Big Ten Championship game, just like any other big games we played this season, this page is now folded, although I will be in the fraternity for the rest of my life, which I'm extremely honored to be.
"Our focus right now is winning the College Football Playoff. That's what would make this (Heisman) trophy so much sweeter. I believe this trophy is a little bit of a push of confidence on us, on the team, that we're making history for the IU team in history to be 13-0 and also to bring home a Heisman Trophy to Bloomington. I think this is pushing us forward, and now all our team understands and even the lift this morning, we understand that we need to be humble and hungry. Hey, it's congrats, all this stuff, hey, let's go, we did it, we got the trophy; now it's on to the real trophy or the season's trophy, which is the national championship.''
Mendoza received plenty of accolades for his Heisman speech, which some say was the best ever. His heart, his compassion, all shined in the speech.
"Yeah, preparation is a huge thing for myself, and I believe preparation is what leads to confidence. When you're prepared for an opportunity, that means you have confidence going in,'' Mendoza said about his prep work for the biggest speaking moment of his life. "That's something that Tim Tebow, some advice that he gave myself was not to live in the past or to live walking on eggshells per se, but live and make decisions that you won't regret, meaning hey, I'm going to stay up and play some video games instead of watching some more film.
"That's a process that I've taken this season, whether it's Ohio State — that week, whether win, lose or draw I was going to lay my head on the pillow saying I did everything possible I could have done to put my best foot forward. So that's some great advice by Mr. Tebow and advice I'll carry out for the rest of my life.''
The speech was well-rehearsed, Mendoza said, and got rave reviews even before he delivered it.
"The speech, I think it was my duty as a finalist to practice and rehearse the speech. I rehearsed it, and it sounded a lot better in the mirror, and then I got up there and I'm like, wow, I'm really nervous right now. So I started stuttering a little bit.
"I've heard positive feedback from the speech. I think it was great to show everybody that's helped myself throughout my journey. I think it was incredibly special in the speech to shout out everywhere I've been before. ... Devonta Smith gave a speech at the Heisman, and he essentially said something similar to what I said at the end, and I took it from him. Basically saying, if you're too small, too raw, too anything, don't let anybody knock you down; you can do it.
"At that point I was a two-star recruit, committed to Yale, and so I took that and I thought it was my duty to push that message to the next generation, the next Heisman winner that's going to be a low recruit and make the underdog story. I'm sure Mr. Smith got it from someone before him, so I was like, all right, it's my duty to pass the torch to whatever is next, hopefully to reach somebody like that.''
Mendoza said spending the weekend in New York with his teammates was a blast.
"There was a lot of people there. We know how to handle ourselves with class. You never get, like, obliterated,'' Mendoza said. "We always have a good time. We can always control ourselves. That's one thing with us, is it's always a good time because we control ourselves and we don't need all that extra stuff, if you get what I'm alluding to, to have a ton of fun. We all just have a lot of fun with each other. So it's more about feeding off of each other and having a good time.
"I was so overwhelmed by emotion the entire week, meeting all the winners, having an opportunity on the media to shout out my teammates, and then ended up winning the award. It was a little bit of a mental recovery. Now I believe I'm in a good state right now where I'm humble and I'm hungry right now for the College Football Playoff.''