Getting mushy. Northeast football going southeast.

[Carl Spackler]

It wont' be cold, thick, rainy and snowy, icy mushy mucky field football in Nashville, it will be hot and sweaty and crampy if you're not drinking enough fluids, but Northeastern football is going southeastern this week anyway.

This is our first game with a target on us. I guarantee there are guys down there in Nashville that want payback, and they want to defend their home field. That's a powerful motivation.

But we're stronger. We can overcome it. We will bring an intensity on the road that is new and isn't going away. I think we're a team that knows what it's made of, and what it is, and what it's all about. Even if the public and our opponent this week has no idea. Even if there are 3 different offensive systems out there, all with a different queen on the chessboard. Yup - I just called quarterbacks queens. Even if we've got a whole new system of playing in all three phases.

We are going down to Tennessee to bring our northeast brand of football to the southeast, and bloody some noses before it's over. Because that's what it's all about. Smashmouth football?

That was invented here in Connecticut a long time before there were facemasks and hard hats. It's harder now to get those noses bloody on the other side of the line, but you can still do it. You can do it with clean, hard contact that happens when you bring the wood with some meaning behind it. This team is going to take step two towards claiming that ownership of college football back for us. Every week is a step, this is step two.

I understand from reading around here that many of us fans will be there.

Quick story - last season, after the Vanderbilt game, My family and friends families are way out in the parking lot cooking up an afternoon meal and the kids are running around playing. Not a lot of cars around out there, at that time of day post game, as we were late getting to the stadium that day due to the families sports schedules in the morning.

Down the path from the stadium, comes a significant group of Vanderbilt fans. Probably about 15-20 adults and another 10 or so kids. Wearing jerseys, plenty of garb, my guess are family members of the team.

They stop by our tailgate, before heading on, we chat and talk for awhile. Share some food, kids throwing the pigskin around together.

They told us that they were very impressed with everything aobut the program. The facility, the fans, the team, the game. One fellow told me that he's been to every Vanderbilt game for a couple years now (pretty good sign you're talking to a family member) and that what we've got up here in CT, is just as nice and in many ways better for college football than anywhere he's been in the SEC and outside the SEC with Vandy.

Anyway - nice feel good mushy stuff. And the important part, is where it happened and between who, and I hope that our ambassadors on the road, leave Tennessee to come back to CT the same way that Vanderbilt crew left us.

AWAY from the field, because the result on the field is going to be the same as last year.

BECAUSE - There's nothing nice and feel good mushy about what we're bringing to the field in Nashville. Well, there might be some mushy noses under the gold helmet facemasks when this is over, but we are coming to play some PHYSICAL. FAST. SMART. Northeastern football.

Last week was business, this time it's personal.

 

[CTPride]

Theres been a few makersmuppet copy cat posts going around recently. Can't be bad for the ol mojo.

 

[Carl Spackler]

Not sure what that means.

But I do know that it's game week, and we're going on the road, against an opponent that we should be able to smack around a little bit, but a dangerous opponent, the kind that's really proud and wants to defend it's honor.

We're going to have to be able to go out there and bring the killer attitude.

The kind of toy attitude, sort of a little bit like a cat with mouse.....you know.....grab it by the throat, throw it around a little, toss it up in the air. Pin it's tail to the ground as it's trying to run, walk around with it hanging from your mouth like a trophy, for awhile.....then tear it's guts out.

Cats are evil creatures.

That's I'm glad we're dogs, and we like to just kick ass and then have our belly rubbed after.

I can't wait to see our guys on that field in Tennessee. We're invaded SEC country. The battle has to start somewhere.

 

[huskypantz]

The Vandy site had at least one fan who visited us last year and was very complimentary of the tailgating environment. I thought that was pretty nice praise coming from an SEC school fan who's probably visited some of the best gameday environments in the country.

 

[-Huskiediehard-]

OP where you yankee on scout?

 

[HuskyFan16]

ya he was

 

[-Huskiediehard-]

Well done yankee/Carl I enjoy all of your post.

 

[Carl Spackler]

Yup, it's me - in person. Former name too long for the new website, so I went with an oldie but goodie.

i'm so happy its the regular season.

I think that the first quarter of this game is going to be a big, BIG, sign of how far and different we've come as a team. I know it's not Michigan, or Oklahoma. But it IS Vanderbilt. On the road.

It's going to be a big sign as to whether or not that 'only play hard when boxed in a corner' attitude really has packed up and left.

Because I'm very, very sure that the Vanderbilt players are going to be jacked up, and ready for some contact, from that opening whistle.

The opening kickoff will set the tone, and how loud those cracks of the pads are on the first snap, and every snap after.

I'm not concerned with the offensive packages, or the defensive packages. The players know what they're supposed to do. Going on the road and winning a game against a BCS opponent is about what each player brings to the table emotionally, mentally and physically, and how they feed off each other - when it comes to the basics. BLocking, tackling and smart, disciplined, tough, physical, fast football.

There will be some toe toe blows, and some bells rung early. I'm not worried about our ability to get back up from something like that, man - if you can't drag yourself back up for a fight in a football game after getting knocked down real hard, and go after your opponent even harder after it, then you're in the wrong sport.

What I'm interested to see, is if we can get out on the field, land the knockdown blows from the get go, and then keep the feet on the gas pedal until the final whistle, and draw all the energy we need from ourselves on the road.

Only a team that's mentally, emotionally, and physically ready can do that.

I think we are. We shall see Saturday night.

 

[businesslawyer]

This "only play hard when boxed in a corner" theory you've developed is total BS by the way if you care to analyze the history of our seasons under HCRE. Last year, something was absolutely off the first 7 games. But that is not the history of this program.

 

[businesslawyer]

Other than last year, what is the basis for your conclusion. I am not quibbling with your words -- I am stating that I think while fear of failure was a possible problem last year, I see no basis for claiming that has been a recurring problem.

 

[Carl Spackler]

You know what, I jsut deleted that too. I'm so tired of the talk of the past. We've got a game Saturday.

I'm looking forward to seeing a team that believes it can win from the moment it takes the field show up on Saturday, and even moreso, looking forward to HEARING a team that believes it can win through my TV set while on their on the road, and seeing and hearing them every week thereafter from now on, regardless of who, when and where the opponent is.

 

[freescooter]

I agree with BL...I think the one thing you can say about Edsall teams is that they always played hard...even when they weren't that good, they played hard...and generally they improved as the season went on. Early last year they had a huge issue that I think had much to do with the some personel not being with the program more than fear of anyhting. If you want to argue that they were mentally unprepared for Michigan and 110,000 I won't disagree, though I'm not sure all the factors that contributed to that.

 

[Carl Spackler]

i'm ticked now. Frickin Edsall is gone. He'll be remembered well for what he did, but you can't ignore what he didn't do, and that's win games on the road.

Want to know what our record is since 1999 in early season games on the road? Say first four games on the road? 15-34.

Oh wait, we were in trailers. Well we went 9-3 in 2003 and got bowl snubbed.

Want to know what our record was since 2003 in early season games on the road - against BCS conference competition?

6-21.

Out of conference BCS competition?

3-9. We've beaten fellow BCS competition - Duke, Indiana and Baylor on the road early in a season (before November) since 2002.

You can believe what you want, but I believe the easiest way to get a measure of how well a TEAM is playing together, is to look at how they play on the road, because as I've written above, playign well on the road is entirely about how well your team feeds off each other and plays together emotionally and mentally.

This team had a mental preparation and emotional readiness problem, in the past, many, many times, BECAUSE Edsall waited for palyers to figure it out themselves and if a team hasn't figure it out by November, they're not going to figure it out.

I discussed this at lenght last season early on when I began writing and just the other day right here. You can't coach like that, if you don't have players that are ready for it.

Sooner or later, many of you are going to realize that we could have been SO much better than we actually were in the past few years, had the psychology aspect of coaching been better handled.

 

[businesslawyer]

I'm confused. You keep bringing up Edsall, and then when people disagree with your criticisms of him you sigh and say you want to talk about UConn moving forward.

For those of us not bright enough to understand your position, do you want only to talk about UConn forward or do you want to talk about Edsall and the past?

 

[Carl Spackler]

24-41 overall on the road by my calculation since 1999.

15-34 on the road in games before november.

9-7 in road games in november or december.

The premise is that a team that is mentally, emotionally prepared to play well on the road, has a good chance of winning, say 50-50.

I rest my case counselor.

 

[businesslawyer]

So your conclusion is that teams that come on later in the year reflect poor coaching preparation as opposed to good coaching preparation that makes the team better as the year goes on.

You have stated a proposition for which there is no proof. But from your posts you must be smart enough to know that if we asked 100 people who follow football if your proposition is true or false, the fast majority (i.e. the conventional wisdom) would state that it's false. Most people believe that good coaching makes a team better as the season wears on, not bad coaching.

 

[SAMCRO]

You know what, I jsut deleted that too. I'm so tired of the talk of the past. We've got a game Saturday.

I'm looking forward to seeing a team that believes it can win from the moment it takes the field show up on Saturday, and even moreso, looking forward to HEARING a team that believes it can win through my TV set while on their on the road, and seeing and hearing them every week thereafter from now on, regardless of who, when and where the opponent is.

24-41 overall on the road by my calculation since 1999.

15-34 on the road in games before november.

9-7 in road games in november or december.

The premise is that a team that is mentally, emotionally prepared to play well on the road, has a good chance of winning, say 50-50.

I rest my case counselor.

Glad you decided to keep looking forward...

 

[Carl Spackler]

If you you seriously want to talk about the fear of failure, and how it applied to the way our program was being run in the past, then this is not the time or place, but whatever, it's become the place.

Read these two pieces coming up, first one's a link, second one a quote you'll have to trust me on. Understand that our former coach was a guy much in the mold of Tom Landry, and our current one is much more like Bill Parcells. Plays vs. Players coaches respectively.

So - a 'Plays' coach. This first piece is about how different players handle the coaching. And how the coach used it. Lombardi was the same way as Landry, both of whom coached together with the Giants. These guys completely understood human behavior, and knew what buttons to push to make sure that the players were going to do their jobs within each play right, every time, and were very much focused on executing their jobs perfectly on every snap because of the importance of that play - to the coach - to the team.

Earl Blaik developed the coaching technique with Douglas MacArthur giving his military perspective and Lombardi as an assistant coach at Army, believe that or not, and many many coaches have used it. The fear players had was in letting down the system.

http://www.silverandbluereport.com/2010/02/former-cowboys-motivated-by-fear-of-failure-and-landry/

Then read this quote: by Phil McConkey talking aobut punt returns, coached directly by Bill Parcells, a very, very much 'Players' coach.

If you posed the question to NFL players about the single, most difficult thing to do on a football field, catching punts would be at the top of list. Most agree that quarterback is the most difficult position to play, but the one thing that strikes fear into the hearts of the toughest guys on the field, is standing under a punt. And it's a job usually handled by the smallest guy on the team.

It's a play, if not executed correctly, can turn the momentum of the game and embarrass a poor soul. Throwing an interception or fumbling the ball are terrible mistakes, but muffing and turning over a punt is devastating. Think about it, the defensive coordinator just came up with a scheme or call to get his defense off the field. The players come off to the sideline, and before they even grab a drink, they have to turn around, put on their helmets, and go back on the field because the little sob returner screwed up.

That's where the great fear lies. It's not getting pummeled, it's walking off the field after losing the ball, and passing your much larger teammates who just worked hard to get a stop. That is a terrifying thought.

The fear a player has in letting down their teammates.

the problem we had in the past, is that our coach was coaching one way - the first way, but expecting his team to come together another way.

That's why the road game win loss records over the course of the seasons look the way they do.

I want to talk about UCONN football. Randy Edsall was Uconn football for a long time, so we've got talk about him sometimes.

 

[Carl Spackler]

"Upon the fields of friendly strife are sown the seeds that upon other fields on other days will bear the fruits of victory."

Douglas MacArthur said that Earl Blaik in a letter written from the Pacific theatre in WWII about football in the 1940s sometime. Those words are carved in stone over the Hudson on West Point property outside the stadium.

What players learn on the football field, are lessons that will help them be successful in everything in life. That's the coach's job in college football. Violence and aggression are not to be feared, but controlled.

I'm looking forward to seeing it on Saturday night.

A lot of people that don't like the sport much, don't get that. But I digress.

 

[Kgun7]

Why can't anyone critique elements of the previous coaching regime without condemning the coach? Nobody can deny that Edsall was a class act and probably one of the best choices to bring this program to where it is today. Although control and discipline have exceptional advantages ... they also come with a few disadvantages.

I thought Ghost did a pretty good job of pointing out how and why the use of a particular fear may not always be the best way to motivate successful results. I can separate that segment from his rant ...

 

[whaler11]

The premise is that a team that is mentally, emotionally prepared to play well on the road, has a good chance of winning, say 50-50.

That is pure gold. Even in the NFL the home team wins around 57% of the time depending on what time frame you look at.

If your case is that road teams should win 50% of the time, your case is ridiculous. If your case is that a team upgrading from FCS to a BCS conference should win half of their road games, then they probably should just set you up with a computer like Creed on the Office, where he types and types and it isn't connected to the internet.