Cal FB: Cal at Auburn (9.7.2024) Postgame Presser - Fernando Mendoza and Nohl Williams

Jim McGill Bear Insider Fernando started on fire in the first half, 19 of 21. What did that means? You been able to come into a hostile environment like that and be able to perform almost flawlessly in the first half? Yeah. The leaders of the team last night, such as Nohl and a lot of other guys, we came together and said, It's Cal versus the world in this sense. They're going to come in in a hostile environment, 88,000 white out. But we know that if we just you play by play there, we're going to have a great result. So that was just a testament to the coaching staff calling great plays and everybody on offense, having all eleven guys execute their play and do their job and stay poised. So it was a great job by the offense collectively And Nohl Safe to say it was the biggest game of your career. Yeah, shout out to my defense, man. They kept my spirits high and I didn't have the best, you know, first series. So a shout out the leaders, you know, keeping the juice, you know, So I couldn't let those guys down. So it was a collective effort. Thomas Dunn Write for California Fernando A smooth first half for you and a gritty and gutty second half How are you able to manage all the adjustments you make both in processing and execution throughout the game? Yeah, on offense, we got started hot and second half. Auburn's a great team. Testament to their their community, their fans and their team, their coaches because they were doing great and and they came after us in the second half, but it was still having that juice that Nohl was talking about. It's the synergy of our team. It's the culture of our locker room and just the culture of the team leaders. And no matter who it is, we have everybody waving towels saying, Let's go. There's no player hierarchy in Cal. It was everybody cheering each other on whether they had a great play. Whether you had a so-so play. It was all of us coming together maintaining that energy. And for an 88,000, I know you're a seasoned veteran. You've seen it all throughout your time in college football. Who did you lean on what you said you had that tough first rep Who did you lean on to help get yourself back in I lean on all the people in the DB group Man. Shoutout Miles, shoutout Craig, Jai'ir, Lu All those guys, man. Marcus Marcus you feel me free Marcus Yeah, free Marcus. And my coaches made it instill in me, you know, you know just stay locked in Stay locked in So that's what I had to do. So, Fernando, did you come into this game thinking you might have to throw the ball quite a bit instead of running game with your outstanding running back we have an amazing running attack and that stems from Coach Bloesch all the offensive linemen and the plethora of running backs excuse me that we had. We had we saw Jaivian Thomas, Jaydn Ott, Calloway. We have even I mean, we just have so many guys. I'm just blanking because we just we have so many guys. But when it's my time to be called and my job is to be executed, that's that's a part of offense. If we need to run the ball a lot, then we'll do that. If we need to throw the ball a lot, we'll do that. But we all have trust in each other, whether it's running the ball, throwing the ball, whatever the scheme is, we all trust each other. Everyone's going to do their job and that was a great job by our offense today. And even in the end, although we threw a lot, Jaivian Thomas and Jaydn Ott, Calloway, all the guys had pretty big runs and we were able to strike a nice touchdown and get in a couple of good drives going together with the run. Okay, Congratulations, guys. Doug Parish here, Football organically. I've lost my voice. Excuse me a bit cheering on you and I love what I see out there. I love the momentum, I love the tenacity and Nohl You get your hands on the ball, man. Often lately. What is contributing to that? Uh, just wanting to win and all the work I put in with my team in the offseason fourth quarter program, going and going through that with those guys and Coach B and all that is coming together now, so we just got to keep it going. Fernando, for you, you are extremely tough out there and you look like you got a little banged up just like before you just got back up and that shows a lot of leadership you talked about. Talk to us about my teammates and quarterback is a different position, but my teammates, they go out there and fight every single down for me physically and and we all fight for each other. So I know that I need to have my teammates back. They have my back. So we have a really strong offensive culture like that. And then also shout football organically. Love, love the podcast I mean, this guy, he like five picks and one of them like I if people want to you know roast me or whatever I mean I could say it. I mean I'll go for my boy I mean that one wasn't a pass interference and throughout playing fall camp and all that stuff I mean seeing Nohl that's we are secondary. I mean this is this is NFL secondary. The Cal defense had the takers a couple of years ago, which is great. And they're just legends in the Cal history. And this I believe this is the next group going against these guys. It's tough. It's really tough. And Nohl, Marcus Stacks, Craig, Ja'ir, Zay and I know, I know I'm missing somebody or somebody, so don't, don't roast me on that. But I mean, that's an explosive group and that's why receivers are getting so much separation because of the good, good on good training that we had. So you guys in front of you wrote it up. There's some controversial calls in the second half that that could have really been game changers that interception could have potentially ended the game, the targeting call which seemed to be a shot by the shoulder instead of the helmet. How do you address that? When you're on the sidelines, you're trying to shake it off and stay focused? That's that's a big thing. And I to you, I've been here for it's my third year here. And if I'm being entirely honest, first year that I was here, that might've shooken us up and throw us off the track. But just because of all the hard work we put into and the extremely strong culture that we've developed, Amidst the transfer portal and we got so many so much good talent. We've maintained that culture in the sideline of saying, Hey, we have our backs. Nohl, like you have my back, I have your back going to each other. So it's just great to see how this Cal team is really put together and truly something special just from all the offseason collaborative work that we did with offense defense. You know, when Defense got together out of football, when offense got together out of football, I mean, it just speaks testaments to our team and our culture that, hey, they might not they might give us a little jab, but we're going to dodge the next one and knock them out. So it's good. All right. We're going to go to Zoom now with Joaquin Ruiz from the Daily Cal at Fernando and talking about your receivers making big time plays today. You guys were hobbling Jaydn obviously was a little injured and receiving room overall is pretty injured. Can you talk about your connection with Nyziah for two weeks now? Yeah, I think all my passing touchdowns have been to Nyziah and that just speaks testament. He was a third string guy at the beginning of fall camp and he worked and worked and work and we talk a lot. We're really good friends on football and outside of football, and that's what builds that chemistry, the extra route, running and just having that friendship similar to Trond, Mikey, JB, Mavin that we all have outside of football. But it's a testament to him, a testament to all the receivers. All the receivers made huge plays. We come in here, the SEC DBs and we're like, okay, like we believe our guys are better. Not just as good as these as SEC DBs Is that we go against every single day in practice. So that gives us confidence and I'm really proud of everybody stepping up, especially an entire group are missing or missing a couple of guys, but it's always next man up. And I'm really proud of Zay. Zay and I've talked a lot because it was a situation that I was in last year similar to his starting off third string and then playing a pivotal role in the team. So I'm extremely proud of him. Yeah. Matt Moreno from Rivals go ahead Joaquin Yeah. You speak of your role last year. Did you have a chance to mention it before the game to talk to Sam Jackson I'm really bummed I wasn't able to because I believe that we had an interview right after, but I was really bummed. I wanted to talk to Sam, another one of my friends over there. Number four receiver Camden. We played on the same seven on seven teams and I was able to talk to their defensive coordinator, who was very pleasant. Number nine Asante Samuel A lot of the SEC, I mean it's competition, but this guy, he made sure that I was all right so props to him he's a I mean just speaks to his character and the Auburn's fans character and their team character. And so I wasn't able to talk to him. I'll probably call him after and I don't know if I'll have this chance, but just wanted to make sure Thomas and Jim McGill get this. I just want to say before we leave, I want to shout out to the burners for getting me this shirt. I mean, this is great. Another couple of guys is just this is amazing. And just shout out to them. All right, Matt Moreno rivals, Go ahead. Nohl, I know there's a lot made about their receiver group after what they did last week. You know, over in Auburn. Was there any kind of special challenge for among the DBs in the secondary this week? But you guys were just talking about maybe trying to neutralize them like during the game and you guys were able to kind of really control things on the outside. The conversation was just eliminate the vertical shots because we knew going into the game they were going to try to take their shots and then when the ball is in the air, you know, it's our ball. So no 50/50 it's our ball. So I feel like we did a good job of that today. You know, the defense getting so many turnovers, you know, getting the ball back to Fernando and those guys are a testament to our defense man. So that was the main message is eliminate the vertical shots and then when something does happen, your next next play mentality next play mentality. All right. Jeff Faraudo from Cal Bears on SI Yeah, this for Fernando. Fernando, can you tell us what happened on that play for you? You got the first down on the keeper and you kind of tweaked your knee a little bit. How are you? And also, can you talk a little bit further about this meeting the leaders had last night? Who was involved in that, What you guys proclaimed? It Cal against the world. Yeah, well, good seeing you Mr. Faraudo although can't see you in person. It's always good talking to you and the the run Thankfully it wasn't the same. But it gave me a flashback to the to the bowl game when I hyperextended my knee there so but thankfully to our great training staff we're going to get it checked out no update on it feels good now might just be the adrenaline but no but I definitely feel good. And the leaders we had this year, instead of two captains, we had a 11 captain committee that we have that we rotate. That's why you see different captains every game. People on the committee consists of Nohl, Jack Endries, Jaydn Chandler, T.J. Session, Miles Williams, David Reese, Craig Woodson, Ricky X and then Xavier Carlton and then myself and whenever Coach Wilcox preps us for the schedule and just gives us all the details, the keys to win the game, we all come in after and talk as a team. It's really important to have that culture as a team that we have each other's backs because I love the coaches and the coaches know this. We love them to death, but at the end of the day, we're the ones out there fighting with our brothers, for our brothers. So that was a great thing. David Reese was the one that really sparked it as he's had an instrumental leadership role that has elevated this team. But everybody, all those captains really led. And even if they're even the non captains, they led a lot and just we embrace. At Cal, you don't need to be a captain to lead. You don't need to be special marked or whatever. it be so really proud of the captains and the non captains And that stepped up and led so sort of the 11 of you in front of the whole team. Does that mean Yes, yes, yes, sir. Thank you. All right, last question. The room here, Thomas Dunn for these two? Well, for Coach Wilcox at this point, for years on end. And this team needs to find a way to win close games and win when it counts. Why is this team that was able to get over the top in this situation? This is a testament of what we did in the offseason, what we talked about, because every day I think we went into the mindset like we have to change the narrative. We can't be losing these close games. So what we put in to the offseason is just showing right now, so we're just going to keep going. It's the repetitiveness and I know there's a terrible saying. The typical stuff that people will say on social media and yeah, a lot of coaches and a lot of players that have been here stepped up and said, Hey, we're sick of this. We're sick of this. Oh, we would have been ten and two if we scored five more points in the regular season. We're done with that and realized that good teams and great teams, they finish out and they close. So whenever the offense, whenever we're going against the defense on on long drives or the defense is on I know in both huddles, offense and defense, we're like, we got to punch it in or we got to stop it. We've got to finish, finish, finish, finish. And that was one of our big emphasis this offseason, the finish to play, to finish the drive and to finish the game and as you see, it shows up on a national stage here. So I'm really proud of all my guys and Nohl Nohl says the same about that. And it's all about finishing and we did today, but we have a long season ahead of us and we're looking forward to carrying this momentum into next week. with San Diego State I thank you guys and thank you guys.