00:00We did see the Heisman Trophy take place this past Saturday.
00:04Fernando Mendoza did hoist the hardware, a significant favorite and winner over Diego Pavia, who came in at number two overall.
00:13Thoughts about Fernando Mendoza, big picture, and more importantly, does he have the potential to lead his team to a national championship?
00:22Well, I think he's already shown that because of the way he played against the throw that he made against Penn State, the way he threw the late touchdown against Ohio State.
00:33He's got great poise.
00:35He's got great poise.
00:36They say he's going to be a fairly high NFL draft pick.
00:39So by all means, they're the frontrunner now, and I think they check the most boxes of any team in the country right now.
00:46I don't think it's – I think a lot of people would say Ohio State's still a more talented football team.
00:50Georgia's probably got the battle-tested head coach there, Oregon-Texas Tech, you know, awful good players.
00:58But to me, Indiana is the number one seed for – they went undefeated, and they knocked off last year's national champion.
01:05And Kirk Cignetti has proven in just two years that you could take a middle-of-the-road Big Ten team potential doormat over the past five or six seasons
01:15and turn them into a winner immediately through the transfer portal, through the addition of coaching up players.
01:22I mean, Kirk Cignetti did it quicker than anybody in back-to-back appearances for the college football playoff.
01:29Well, you know, and I think you have to admit to people that know Kirk, he is a great football coach.
01:35He's meticulous.
01:36He's detailed.
01:38Actually, he's just like his dad because the dad was my dad's offensive coordinator at West Virginia.
01:42He is so thorough.
01:44They play good football, good offense, good defense, pass the ball, run the ball.
01:49Every facet of their game is right there at the very top.
01:53And so, again, he's really one of the brightest coaches out there.
01:57People don't know of him as much because he's fairly new to the power four level.
02:02But he's been doing this a long time.
02:05He has, and he's been successful.
02:07He started out with his press conference in Bloomington, and he said, hey, Google me.
02:12All I do is just win, baby.
02:14And that's exactly what he's done.
02:16He takes his team in year number one to the college football playoff.
02:20In year number two, they just don't make the college football playoff.
02:24They are undefeated.
02:25They are the number one overall seed, and they will get the winner, coach, of the Alabama-Oklahoma matchup.
02:33Give me your thoughts just potentially about how Indiana matches up against both of those teams.
02:39Well, again, I would just have to continue to say they match up against about everybody because they have such a consistent team, playing great on offense, great on defense.
02:49They don't make a lot of mistakes.
02:51Well-coached, fundamentally sound, can run and throw the football.
02:55There's just not a lot of weaknesses on that football team the way they have played.
02:59And they've done it against good people, Oregon, Ohio State, even the game they won against Penn State was a heck of a football game.
03:06They've just done it.
03:07And then, man, they blitzed Illinois back there.
03:09So they really have done it by doing everything right, by playing good football.
03:13Kurt Zegnetti's got a great staff with him.
03:16They did a great job of recognizing talent and recruiting talented kids that a lot of them, other people, may not have been after.
03:23But I think with Kurt having coached in 1AA Division II, he's out there looking at a lot of areas other people weren't looking to to get players.
03:31And he's picked up the right ones and did a great job at Indiana.
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