Postgame Quotes: Wisconsin

Curt Cignetti | Indiana Head Coach
Opening Statement
CC: Sixth game in a row at the end of the year and it showed, I thought, in the first half. We looked kind of tired and a little bit lethargic. But I do give Wisconsin credit for playing with a lot of energy, winning at halftime.

What's always worked for me in these situations and worked today again is instead of going in there and kind of rip-snorting at halftime, [I am] just telling everybody to take a deep breath, relax, have fun, go out there and play one play at a time.

I thought we played a good second half, and we had a lot of great individual performances. It's our 11th win in a row, one more than last year and one more than this staff had the year prior to that.

But it will be great to enter an off-week now and get the players some rest [and] the coaches too, really, the assistant coaches. I may even adjust what I normally do. We don't do much on off weeks, just stay sharp. But we need some rest.

We've got to get some guys back. Got a lot of guys out there playing that are banged up, and we've got to get healed up as good as possible.

On Memorial Stadium becoming a "formidable" place to play…
CC: Our fans are the best in America. I know everybody says that that's got it going and packs the house, but I love our fans. I know where we started and where we are now, and they are over the top. I can't say enough good things about them.

We feed off of their energy. I really think that us playing at home is at least a 14-point advantage.

On redshirt senior defensive lineman Mikail Kamara's health status and upcoming mental rest…
CC: Yeah, it's huge, and Mikail Kamara has been dealing with kind of a shoulder nerve stinger issue, which is pretty common for a football player. Those things tend to show up a lot more this time of year, a culmination of all the banging.

We have seven, eight guys in that same boat. But Kamara's had been a lingering issue, and he's another guy that needs rest and needs to get away.

On redshirt junior quarterback Fernando Mendoza breaking single-season touchdown pass record…
CC: I can't say enough about the job that he has done in terms of dedicating himself to the process of improvement and that Chandler Whitmer has done also in accelerating his development. He's come such a long way since we got him from Cal.

But I still think that he's barely scratched the surface of his potential. I think that much of him.

He's a little bit new to the position, really, when you look at him and his background and growing up in terms of his opportunities to get snaps in whether it was junior high or high school even.

I thought he was great today. Twenty-two of 24, four touchdowns, broke the school record for touchdown passes, 30, and of course that's a team effort. It doesn't happen all by yourself.

But I thought he was very poised, very poised, yeah.

On execution on both sides of the ball, without penalties…
CC: Yeah, and I think we're No. 1 in the country in turnover ratio, if I'm not mistaken, which leads to points. It's huge. Penalties [are] to an absolute minimum. One-in-30 is our goal on offense, defense and special teams. Now, they only had one, also. Look at the tape, and you never know, we may have our hands outside every other play. I don't know.

But we talk about that a lot. Before you win a game, you can't lose a game. How do you lose a game? You lose a game by turning the ball over, pre-snap penalties, undisciplined penalties, right? Like fourth down, for instance, today; You think I liked punting the ball fourth-and-1, fourth-and-3 in minus territory? I didn't like it at all. But the way that game was going today in the first half, the only way you lose that game is if you start to do things that are not good football decisions, and they backfire on you because they weren't going to score that many points on us.
But I've been proud of our team all year long in terms of the discipline. [We] got to keep it going.

On when the team accelerated away from Wisconsin…
CC: Yeah, I thought the second half was really clean. [The] Final score was 31-7, and it was 10-7 at halftime, so we won the second half 21-0. It was a little bit of a different first half for sure. I don't think anybody was really satisfied. It is one of the things I talked to the team about this week and before the game was playing four quarters because I didn't feel like we did that the week prior.

On first half challenges and second half changes…
CC: Well, you know, I think sometimes it's just the momentum of the game. They get the ball first, and they haven't been scoring a lot of points, but they go on an eight-minute drive, convert a couple third downs, and you just don't have that many opportunities. Then, all of a sudden in the second half we get the opening drive and we go down and score a touchdown, and the place is rocking. We're getting the momentum, and next thing you know we're getting a turnover on defense, great field position, another touchdown.

Sometimes momentum plays and circumstances of the game play a lot into it rather than the X's and O's. You may run the same play in the second half three times that you ran three times in the first half and all of a sudden you do it better in the second half because guys are doing their job and doing it better.

On halftime approach...
CC: It's just something that worked for me, I think, my second year at IUP too. I remember we were playing a team that had set the record for losses in a row. This team was 12-1 at the end of the regular [season] – really good football team that I had. At home, 7-7, halftime, and it just hit me, and I've done that ever since. And it's always worked.

On seniors playing potential final home game…
CC: Yeah, it's hard for me to look at it that way because we all understand what we've accomplished together and what's down the road. We don't know for a fact that it is our last game here at home. We hope it is. It's kind of weird to say. I get it.

We'll see what happens. We've got a rival game coming up in two weeks, and then hopefully we'll see what happens after that.

On concern for Wisconsin redshirt freshman running back Gideon Ituka…
CC: That's another one that I've learned from through the years. We've had a couple of those. The great news is this particular individual has feelings in his extremities. They're going to continue to test. But I had a couple football teams that had big leads and were in that same situation, and after that ended up losing. They happened later in the game, too, late in the game.

It's hard there because you're not trying to be callous. You're not separating the football from the human element. We prayed. [The] first thing we did was we took a knee, and we prayed. Then we kind of refocused everybody for the game. It's great to hear the positive news up to this point on that individual, the running back from Maryland.

On how excitement for football has grown in Bloomington…
CC: Well, I don't know if it's like a basketball town to a football town. I don't know what it is, but like this staff, a lot of us have been together a long time, and we've got a pretty good track record. And we just came here and the same things kind of happened, even more so. I think it's got everybody's attention because it's a bigger stage.

I think I mentioned this last week. When you look at my journey and all the things and the changes in college football, it all kind of came together. Like the transfer portal – t his doesn't happen 10 years ago. A big reason this happens is because we're in free agency right now, and a big part of my training was not only coaching but being a GM or recruiting coordinator or evaluator.

It's really hard for me to step back sometimes and think about what we've accomplished here. But it takes people, the right coaches and the right players in the locker room, properly led, and got to have a blueprint plan, standards, expectations, and just improve daily and create the right mindset. And we've been fortunate to have great people.
The head coach and the quarterback get too much credit and too much blame, but it's been fun. And let's have more fun.

Indiana Student-Athletes
Fernando Mendoza / QB / R-Jr.
On breaking the single-season passing touchdown record at IU…
FM: It feels great, but it's a culmination of everything, rushing and passing success, and everything we've had this year. Think about all the receivers that we spread the ball out to, most recently Charlie (Becker), E.J. (Williams Jr.), (Omar Cooper Jr.), and Elijah (Sarratt). All those guys were ballers, including the tight ends who had two touchdowns today. [I am] So proud of those guys, and still a long season left, so keep on going.

On it being the last game for the seniors…
FM: I could go on and on. There are 20 seniors or something, but to see them walk on senior night, and then to see them play great games, it's so sentimental and special to me, especially the leadership that was brought into here, and then being able to learn from those guys like (Pat) Coogan, (Aiden Fisher), and get some of their leadership traits to help myself and the team moving forward.

Charlie Becker / WR / So.
On the IU fans…
CB: It's been unreal, from the start of the season to the end of the season. They've come out and shown so much support. So, huge shoutout to them for always coming out through the good weather, the bad weather. They're always there supporting us.

On hanging onto his touchdown catch…
CB: We've been talking about that play all week. They brought a corner cat, so I had a post, and I had to do a little stuff off the safety. So Fernando and I have been connecting on that play all week, so it's really good to see that.

Stephen Daley / DL / Sr.
On the bye week being well timed…
SD: We play a lot of games in a row. A lot of people are banged up, bruised and all that. So, it's kind of great to get off of our feet to recover and get back healthy.

On getting a win on senior day …
SD: It feels amazing, especially for our crowd. They've been amazing all year long. They travel well wherever we (go). I know they traveled to Oregon, they traveled to Penn State, so I was just really happy to finish the season out undefeated at home, you know, for the fans.

On seeing personal improvement after his role expanded…
SD: [I'm] Really just trusting myself more in the plays I can make and know I can make. [It's] Also just getting (to know) the playbook more, just knowing my responsibility and what my job is in the defense. In those times where I just have to do grunt work, take on a double team and all of that, and there's also times where I get a one-on-one situation, I (have) to just go in and just believe in the playbook and myself a bit more.

Aiden Fisher / LB / Sr.
On the first half…
AF: We just came out flat, honestly. We didn't have a lot of energy. Some guys weren't ready to go, and I will take the blame for that. I don't think I was ready to go. I think I could've had more energy and been more of a sparkplug for the team. You know, (it's) something we have got to work on. We can't have that in a big game. So, we have to eliminate that now, get back to training up towards the end of the season. We are looking forward to Purdue and writing that off.

On the emotions of running off the field after the last home game …
AF: It's just been great being here. I really love this place. I have never really been a place over people type of person, but this place is special, and I think it is the people that make it. So, just jogging off and hearing some of the things that they were saying, chants and what not, it just kind of makes you appreciate it. I don't think I really do that enough in my life where I just kind of stop for a second and appreciate things. It's always, when you're with Coach Cignetti, it's 'go, go, go, go,' and we are onto the next thing. I did take a moment there, just kind of appreciating everybody and their support. And I think that's the longest we have spent in the stands after a game, just signing everything, taking pictures. Just knowing it is probably my last home game here, I am just extremely grateful for everybody at Indiana and how special it has been so far.

Luke Fickell | Wisconsin Head Coach
Opening Statement
LF: It's a tale of two halves. In the first half, to be honest with you, that's kind of the way you'd draw it up for us. Methodically doing some things, moving the football, taking care of the football, eliminating big plays, other than one, defensively. I think that was the idea of the way we wanted to play right now, where we are, and the complimentary idea of what football has to look like for us, as we continue to drive and push in these last few weeks. The second half was not that. It's the exact opposite. We gave up big plays, turned the ball over, and just where we are, it's really, really difficult for us to overcome those kinds of things. It's what we've seen earlier, at times, this year. It hurts a hell of a lot more when you see how things go in the first half and how you can play, and I'm not saying that's why, it's a sixty-minute game. I'm not going to sit here and say we had it, but how we can play, the things that we need to be able to do, the consistency we need to be able to play with. To not be able to do that in the second half, it hurts. You have to be able to overcome all kinds of things in the face of adversity, and we weren't able to do that.

On redshirt freshman running back Gideon Itucka's status…
LF: I have been in those situations before. I think we felt like he was going to be OK and just to remind them that Gideon's going to be fine. Not that we know everything at that point in time, but we just got to reassure (the team) of those things at the moment. I think we did get some news that we feel like it's good. He's still being evaluated in a lot of things. They feel good about where he is and having feelings and things like that. It's one of those things that's difficult. It's a part of the game unfortunately. Every team is going to have to go through it. I'm not saying that it's one of those things that cost us. Sometimes, I think it can be a rallying point that guys want to pull together as a guy like Gideon is being carted off saying 'I'm sorry.' Sometimes that can be a motivator. When you're playing a great team, you have to find other ways.

On freshman linebacker Darryl Peterson III's growth…
LF: What he has done, and continues to do, is what I mean when I say the seniors lead the way. That's what you got to have. After last year, we asked him to play a different position, to grow, to get a little bit bigger, to really challenge him to be disciplined in a lot of the things he does as a football player. He's a disciplined kid, but just in general the discipline of playing the game of football, and I am as proud of 'DP' as anybody on this football team. Not just because he has two and a half sacks. He made a mistake a couple weeks ago and got ejected and came back in the second half and played really, really well. His growth as a football player is what I'm incredibly proud of.

Wisconsin Student-Athletes
Darryl Peterson III / OLB / Gr.
On Indiana redshirt junior quarterback Fernando Mendoza…
DP: He's a Heisman candidate for a reason. He was able to see some of the pressure and get out of it a couple times and make some tough throws. That's what the best players in the country do. They make plays. So he did that today.

On the strength of the first half…
DP: I think [it was] execution. When we execute, we're a damn good defense. I think the first half you saw us execute a majority of the half, and that wasn't the case in the second half. I feel like our last two games we got to put together four quarters of execution in all three phases.

On Itucka's injury status…
DP: Prayer. That's really all I could think about. [I] Prayed with a couple of guys on the sideline, continued to pray throughout the game for him and after the game for him. I think that was the biggest thing for me. Jesus is the only reason I was able to get through that game. Seeing someone that I'm close with down like that and not moving, it's tough, and going out and playing after is not easy. I just think prayer, and that was what I relied on during that time.

Lance Mason / TE / Sr.
On Indiana's gameplan and run defense…
LM: They had a good plan, for sure, but we just got to do a better job of executing, staying on blocks longer. They made it tough, but we have to get the run game going for our offense to get anything going.

On touchdown reception…
LM: Every week we have different plays like that for each game. So that was the first time this week that we prepared for it, and honestly I didn't in my head think that we were going to get it. We set it up previously with the same formation and ran the ball, and so obviously they're thinking fourth-and-1 we're running the ball, and it was just wide open. It was a great call […] In my head I'm like "just catch the ball," and it feels like it's up there forever, then once you catch it's like "OK, don't trip because there's nobody out here."

Charles Perkins/ DL / R-Jr.
On takeaways from the game…
CP: The takeaway is keep fighting every down. As a defense I feel like we played really good. The second half wasn't the best half for us. We came out firing in the first half. The takeaway was we got to keep fighting. We got two more games, one at home next week and one on the road. So, just keep fighting man, whatever we do, just keep fighting.

On Fernando Mendoza…
CP: This is one of the best conferences other than the SEC. [We're] playing a lot of great quarterbacks. The Indiana quarterback was great. He made a lot of guys miss, and he kept throwing the ball really well. So we're playing a lot of quarterbacks that keep our defense elevated. A lot of guys played really well today on the defensive side of the ball. [We've played] a lot of quarterbacks, and these quarterbacks are talented, man. Good quarterbacks for a reason.

Indiana University Athletics

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Charlie Becker

Omar Cooper Jr.

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Aiden Fisher

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Fernando Mendoza

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