It’s Sept. 2022, and Matthew Bedford is mindlessly scrolling through social media, just days after suffering a season-ending torn ACL in the first half of Indiana football’s opener against Illinois.
Bedford, now a fifth-year senior and the Hoosiers’ starting right guard, suddenly stopped scrolling. He was searching for motivation while trying to keep his head held high — and found exactly what he was looking for in a message about late NBA star Kobe Bryant’s “Mamba Mentality.”
Bryant described this mindset as consistently trying to be the best version of oneself, driven by five pillars: fearlessness, relentlessness, passion, obsessiveness and resilience.
Upon seeing the social media post, Bedford went to YouTube and dug into the mentality. Encapsulated by what he watched, the 6-foot-6, 305-pound lineman opted to incorporate it into his daily lifestyle – and hasn’t looked back since.
“Seeing his mentality about his competition and the way he approaches life, it’s just definitely great inspiration,” Bedford said.
In a sense, Bedford has long embodied the Mamba Mentality, even if he didn’t quite know it.
Prompted into the starting lineup at left tackle for the final eight-plus games of his true freshman season in 2019 after an injury to veteran Coy Cronk, Bedford starred, earning Indiana’s Offensive Newcomer of the Year award while the Hoosiers went to a bowl game for the first time in three years.
This checked fearlessness off the list, and he arrived in Bloomington already armed with passion, so two-fifths of the Mamba Mentality had been achieved by the end of his first season.
But it wasn’t until Bedford stumbled upon the social media post amid adversity that he truly experienced resilience and relentlessness, perhaps best illustrated through his rehabilitation.
Searching for more inspiration after having months of hard work go down the drain in Week 1, Bedford found the right recipe – and grew closer to embodying the Mamba Mentality along the way.
“That helped me focus,” Bedford said. “Kobe, nothing's going to stop him from being great or being on the next level, keep climbing. So, I had to take that as an add on to what I was trying to do, what I was trying to accomplish.”
Bedford was rated as just a 3-star recruit out of Cordova High School in Tennessee, less than half an hour from Memphis. He’s long been motivated to prove he’s better than others think – his own coaching staff included.
The result is a personal battle where Bedford refuses to settle for his current level of play and instead focuses on leveling up, always pursuing the next step.
For instance, Allen said Monday that Bedford, who’s allowed only one sack and three quarterback hits this year, played his best game of the season in the Hoosiers’ most recent contest, a 52-7 loss to Michigan on Oct. 14. Bedford disagreed, claiming he still hasn’t met the standard he’s set for himself.
That standard? Being the country’s best offensive lineman, a lofty – but fearless – goal that speaks to his commitment to conquering the overwhelming battle underneath his helmet.
“It's been there since I was a freshman,” Bedford said. “My coaches have always been able to see my potential, and I just see so much more of myself. So, I'm always chasing the betterness. I think it’s attainable, it's just something I'm always going to be chasing – kind of a Kobe mentality.”
Bedford grew up a fan of Bryant, an NBA Hall of Famer and 18-time All-Star with the Los Angeles Lakers, and has now made his teachings a key aspect of daily life.
The final box – obsessiveness – has been checked in a trying 2-4 campaign for the Hoosiers, during which offensive coordinator Walt Bell was fired and replaced by Rod Carey, and the quarterback position has seen constant flux between redshirt freshmen Tayven Jackson and Brendan Sorsby.
It’s far from the season Bedford anticipated, but he’s as determined – or obsessed – as ever to make the best of it, and he’s still hopeful for a six-win campaign and bowl game appearance.
“These next few games are the decider of whether or not we’ll make it,” Bedford said. “I want to get there and do anything I have to, whether it be to stay up a couple more hours every night study to get the game plan, or to be able to help somebody on the field if I need to stay after practice to work on this drill or sharpen this technique.”
In just over a year, Bedford went from heartbroken and searching for direction to one of Indiana’s leaders in times of despair and is a starter for the fifth consecutive year.
Bedford’s pursuit of perfection may never be fully realized – but his hopes of mirroring Bryant’s Mamba Mentality certainly have, and both he and the Hoosiers are better off because of it.
Follow reporters Matt Press (@MattPress23) and Dalton James (@DaltonMJames) and columnist Daniel Flick (@ByDanielFlick) for updates throughout the Indiana football season.
