The numbers are loud and the moment is massive but as the stage keeps expanding Fernando Mendoza refuses to let any of it pull him out of place.
“I think it is the other way around,” Mendoza said when asked about what he has given Indiana during its playoff run . “Hoosier Nation has given myself and the coaching staff here [such a] great opportunity…so much belief in my character and my play.”
That perspective frames everything. Eight touchdown passes across two playoff games. Five incompletions. Touchdowns to four different receivers. None of it presented as self-congratulation. Mendoza speaks like someone borrowing the moment rather than owning it.
He admitted that wasn’t always the case.
“Game one, I threw zero touchdown passes,” Mendoza said. “I was trying to be Superman.”
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The reset came quickly. Indiana didn’t need a savior. It needed precision.
“You don’t gotta be Superman,” he recalled being told. “We have a great defense and great playmakers… just do your job.”
So he did. Mendoza became exacting with his reads patient with his progressions and ruthless with his decisions.
“My job is to be effective with making really accurate balls and really great decisions,” he said. “That’s what I pride myself on every single play.”
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Even after a near flawless night his focus drifted to the details left undone.
“There was a protection check I missed,” Mendoza said. “There’s a ball that I want to have back.”
That mindset followed him into the conversation about what comes next, a National Championship game in Miami less than a mile from where he grew up.
“It’s a very full-circle moment for myself,” Mendoza said. “However I think the National Championship means a lot to everybody…Even though it is the National Championship,” he said, “we don’t have to do anything that is out of character. We just gotta play our brand of football.”
Mendoza repeatedly returned to the same idea when describing Indiana’s run.
“Delayed gratification,” he said. “Discipline in your process and preparation.”
No chasing and no widening the lens just because the lights are brighter as the stage keeps growing and the stakes keep rising Mendoza stays rooted exactly where Indiana needs him inside the process that brought them here with the biggest moment still waiting.
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