- [Announcer] The 2019 football season is here,
the pride of the Valley your Fresno State Bulldogs
taking on the USC Trojans.
- I'm going to appreciate the moment
of being a football player.
I'm going to let everything else that's outside my control,
just let it be,
but when I'm there, I'm giving 110% of my focus
straight on winning the game.
Being there for my teammates
and being the leader that they need me to be.
I've always had a tough journey.
My journey's never been easy.
My family life, football life, academics,
but I just wanted to show you guys that I could fight.
I'm gonna keep on fighting no matter what happens.
- [Announcer] Reyna back to throw,
looking for Rivers on the wheel,
Ronnie has it taken away, was it picked off?
Intercepted by USC.
USC goes to 1-0 with a 31-23 victory over
coach Jeff Tedford's Fresno State Bulldogs.
- [Coach] You do know that every game
there's gonna be adversity in some way, shape or form,
and how we deal with it is up to us,
but I think the best way to deal with adversity
is trying to stay calm and poise
and learn from it and move on to the next thing.
- I'm getting it because my family,
we've been through all of it and it was tough at first.
We've got stronger through my adversity
and throughout all my challenges.
So this is a shout out to all the men in my family.
- He always had a hard work ethic,
but now his mindset is on a different level.
The point where we always try to build
that mindset through confidence.
Now that he has the confidence,
he's gonna be unstoppable this year.
His offseason was probably one of the best offseasons
I've ever seen from an athlete.
- [Coach] How many have you done?
- 15.
(clapping)
He thinks it's funny.
I'm not really motivated,
I'm more determined to have this small opportunity
to maximize what I've been working for.
It gets me going.
Being a Mexican,
we don't have the same opportunities as everyone,
but we're not gonna be out here complaining about it.
We're gonna put our head down and go to work for it.
Go get what we want
and make sure we have family as our backbone.
- [Male] It wasn't until high school
that I think everything changed for us.
- [Female] Yeah.
- Then we started seeing, why are people cheering for him?
(laughter)
- [Female] What's so great about him?
- Yeah, what's so good about him?
He just knows how to throw a ball.
- I'm learning Spanish and I watch novelas,
and in novelas the handsome guy that girls like,
you have to have long hair.
I'm their little kid, each single person here has raised me.
This is my village and I just want to spend time with them,
be normal again as I would say.
By normal I mean, just be a kid.
- We used to call him "The Natural,"
because anything sports he picked up
it was always natural for him.
He's always been really athletic,
picks up after his dad and his grandpa, he's a workaholic.
- My grandfather, he was an immigrant,
he came into the states.
He was a janitor and he worked his way up to a sculpturer
at Disney. He instilled that in all of us,
having pride in the last name, working, just go, go, go.
- You see a lot of kids come through, a lot of athletes,
not so much with a great foundation like he has.
So you can tell that he's been raised correctly.
His mindset, his loyalty,
just the type of kid is in general is awesome,
and that's how all these kids gravitate to him.
He's a natural born leader.
Especially being a quarterback.
- At the end of the day I've seen him mature as a grown man,
and that's the best gift I could get as a father,
and thank Fresno State and coach Tedford
for the opportunity they have given him.
- I'll be one of the few Mexican quarterbacks
to take a snap at Fresno State, and for that,
that's just a huge honor, it's a huge responsibility,
as a quarterback the position you love the limelight,
you love the pressure, you love all that.
I love it.
Everybody's watching.
The whole city of Fresno is watching.
The Hispanic community, I have young kids from Texas
that hit me up telling me, I'm so proud,
you make me want to become a quarterback.
So I have a lot of people of the culture to represent
so I gotta make sure I'm giving everything I've got to them,
because I know they're giving everything,
all their support, their love to me.