OK – sorry! Four messages wondering about Saturday’s game summary. My Dad’s birthday…..Had this blog pretty much fleshed out so went over to visit him and Judy over in Whitehall. Will clean it up and get it out to the loyal followers. You guys must be pretty bored to spend time reading about my musings.
Personally I think you are all a little off center to be reading the comments of some broken down old football all coach who has one job – having fun!
Football is a tremendous game and I have been fortunate to have been able to spend my whole life working at playing at a simple game. I have been so lucky – well as I have often said….the second luckiest man in the world (ever).
Franklin and Marshall 36 – Moravian 14
But….well… losing is well it is just not a good feeling. It doesn’t matter how old you are, how many games you have coached, how many players you have worked with. Losing just takes the wind out of your sails and really puts you in a bad way. You feel out of wack – unhappy with the world – wondering on whether it is all worth it.
But it is!
Franklin and Marshall 36 – Moravian 14
Hell, intellectually we all know it is not the end of the world. (People raking their leaves at home, students studying, friends taking a nap on the porch – really won’t think of our game for more than 45 seconds if you look at our game realistically).
At Moravian we will get up tomorrow and figure out why we didn’t get our job done. (Just like they do are doing at Penn State). Each of us involved with the game yesterday will sit down and assess our personal shortcomings as coaches and players. We will examine how we prepared and how prepared we were.
This self inspection is our normal process after our game day. Coaches are gluttons for punishment – very few teams get to win week after week. We are just looking to win most of our games during a season. Most of us lose enough that we question our sanity. So why do we beat ourselves into the ground over a simple game?
Why do we suffer thru the setbacks (we could have normal jobs and get up each Monday morning and go to an office.). But no, we spend hour after hour trying to improve our team only to have some random parent send an email or make a phone call accusing us of holding back their son.
Yup we intentionally prevent certain players from achieving success and help others instead. Well, only guys from the Lehigh Valley really get a chance – yup that is so true everyone knows that. The Blue and Grey club membership insures that you get on the field. We hear it all.
One question you really have to ask yourself as a coach is why do we even look at the emails or take calls from parents….why do you even care what they yell at you from the stands?
Personally I never look at any emails from anyone I don’t know. Could care less what a fan says to me. The lady who yelled at me during the first home game telling me I’d be fired at the end of the year….hah, guess what – I have been fired seven times already. Don’t worry about that stuff…..could care less if you think your son should be playing or not.
(Fire a coach who works for free….good luck with that!) I can pack up and climb back in my truck in less than an hour. The drive back to Michigan may take a little longer.
We are at practice – not you ….see the efforts (or lack of effort) of your sons – know when they miss meetings or sleep thru them – loaf at practice – get in trouble on campus – they certainly aren’t going to tell you those things. But we see them everyday.
Who do you think gets the email from campus safety when an athlete gets in trouble….who gets the call from a prof telling us that Johnny or Kyle or Bill didn’t go to class and is flunking……who broke that window in the dorms? They don’t call Mom and Dad- the football coach gets the privilege of that call.
We know more about what happens on campus than any parent. The coach does more to help his players than any administrator or professor…the coaches give advice, write recommendations, make calls to help the troops find jobs. Yup, what a bunch of jackasses they are!
It will be funny to listen to a mom or dad call their son’s boss when he is in the real world. “Come on Boss my son just can’t get up and make it to work on time – he needs to sleep! Yeah I know he likes to play video games all night. Why can’t he just come to work at noon! You just don’t like him because he is from the Coal regions….or maybe from outside of the Lehigh Valley!
But, back to the point – we did not get the job done this weekend. So ultimately the responsibility comes down to us as coaches. We know that….. and we will spend many, many hours tomorrow agonizing over the video and wondering on what we could have done differently to help our guys play better.
Franklin and Marshall beat us soundly – well frankly they kicked our ass.
Ultimately it will come back to the same mantra….execution of fundamentals. When you go back to yesterday’s game – yes currently F&M is a better team than us (but that is not permanent – we can change that!). But there were a lot of errors we made that can be changed.
Look….I am a realist. I look at our opponent and then take a good look at our team. Then you take a very candid look on what it will take to win. Obviously if you are a highly talented team your checklist is different than if you are playing against a team with more talent than you have.
Going into todays game I really felt that Franklin & Marshall had better personnel. But, that didn’t mean we couldn’t win the game. It just meant that we had to control several phases of the game.
First – we had to be be better in the kicking game than they were, We had to win the turnover battle and be ahead in either the defensive / offensive statistics. Then you have a chance to win the game.
Well, let’s examine the game from a statistical aspect.
Kicking Game: 1. We allowed a blocked punt. 2. Had a bad snap on a punt – allowing a safety. 3. Kicked off out of bounds * But we countered with a fumble recovery on a punt return by F&M.
Penalties: We had six penalties (60 yards) to their one (15 yards)……the fouls that kill you are the pre or post snap penalties. If you have procedure penalties on offense or jump offsides on defense…..Get late hits or personal fouls after the play – these are bad penalties because they are caused by a lack of concentration or inability to control you’re emotions. Granted – the referees are terrible in this conference, but we need to be smarter.
Turnovers: We won that battle 1-0.
Time of Possession: F&M controlled the ball 35:34 – 24:26 / 74 Plays to 48.
Misc: They had 4 sacks to our zero.
Well, you can point a lot of fingers over these statistics. Blame players, coaches…but it comes down to fundamentals. Things that we do day in and day out at practice.
I rarely lose my mind during a game or at practice (perhaps I don’t have a mind to lose??). But what drives me absolutely off the deep end is this…..missing tackles and lack of hustle or pursuit.
We practice tackling every day in practice – I get it – there are time that we will miss a tackle because they have good players too. But when I watch guys tackle high and try to grab at the ball before we knock the ball carrier down that is frustrating.
I stood with Stevie Leyden and Brandon Decker at one point during the game and we spent a few seconds talking about football in general. I told them to watch the games on TV later during the day (i.e. Penn State vs. Ohio State etc.) or on NFL Sundays. Just asked them to watch how people tackle – in those games there are knifing tackles where legs are chopped out from under ball carriers or receivers. No one tackles high – they get them down on the ground.
Division III is the land of the upper body drag down tackles. I can’t tell you how many times I yell to take the ball carrier or receiver’s legs out from underneath them. To hell with trying to grab the ball and strip him – knock the guy down to the ground – there will be plenty of fumbles if you hit them hard enough.
So, back to the drawing board. Back to training the troops. Back to knowing we can get the job done and how to do it. Back to being a Greyhound!
We love these guys playing for Moravian – we truly do. We respect their commitment and how hard they work. Good things are coming their way!
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I am so happy to be part of the school and to spend time on campus as a coach. To see the players get better each day – to watch them grow and become fantastic young men.
The same guys who you guided through struggling with Economics or Math. The same guys who spend a few more hours than needed in Roosevelts! Men who occasionally fall asleep on someones porch on the way home from the OBT! These are the guys who you will never forget. This is what they grow up to be – coaches, lawyers, cowboys and Wall Street leaders. Perhaps there will someday be a president in that group of great young people.
Gotta get ready for next week – those Red Devils from Dickinson College. Going to get after them from the opening whistle and play until the closing gun. Can’t wait!
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Beautiful Game-day on Moravian Campus….Sunshine and great weather here on the Bethlehem campus!
What a Life!