At its very core, IU football under the direction of head coach Curt Cignetti is wired to hunt down and eliminate complacency.
And Indiana had just watched Alabama rally from a 17-point hole to beat Oklahoma less than two weeks earlier.
So when the Hoosiers went into their halftime locker room with a 17-0 lead over the Crimson Tide at the Rose Bowl, there was going to be zero tolerance for taking their foot off the gas.
Enter Hoosier hype man Pat Coogan.
Indiana’s starting center would be named the offensive MVP of the Rose Bowl a couple hours later. But midway through the game, Coogan sensed a sink or swim moment for Alabama. And his speech to the team at halftime helped ensure Indiana would continue their dominance of the Crimson Tide in the second half.
Quarterback Fernando Mendoza shared Monday on the Pat McAfee Show a glimpse of what Coogan said to the team at halftime.
“He always boost us with a little jolt of a pregame speech whether it’s a misfit speech, whether it’s a speech he gave us before the Rose Bowl or the speech at halftime saying, ‘Hey, Oklahoma, they were up 17-0. You know, we we don’t want to fall in that trap. They’re a good team. Alabama’s resilient. Let’s stomp them. Let’s drag them to the deep end until the last bubble comes up.’ Then we could celebrate,” Mendoza said.
“And so having guys like that on the team and having that mindset on the team is really why we were able to pull away.”
Coogan arrived at Indiana in February as a player with a reputation for giving fiery speeches at Notre Dame.
But he has said he was hesitant to step on toes and be too vocal in that way early on at Indiana, instead deferring to the returning leaders from Indiana’s 11-2 2024 CFP team.
As the starting center, Coogan is a verbal leader on the field, and as spring practice turned to fall camp and then the season, he naturally started to regain his voice as the emotional leader of the team.
What will he have cooked up for the rematch vs. Oregon on Friday?
It doesn’t work that way for Coogan, who says the thoughts he shares with the team manifest organically.
“It’s really just bits and pieces of what I hear from the coaching staff throughout the week, and what I really feel in my heart is best for the offense to hear,” Coogan said in December. “What will really strike a chord with me personally? It starts with me, and then what I believe will strike a chord with everybody else and what everyone else needs to hear.
“I try my best not to plan it out. I don’t want it to be fake or faked or anything like that. It’s not how it goes for sure.”
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