The Honey Moon is Over

The euphoria of the beginning of the season has past. Our practices aren't quite as intense and things are starting to become routine. Now it's time to get down to the grind. Here are a few ideas that I wrote up of ways to get us through this first challenge:

1. Competition

I think we can compete more in practice and on the track. It's so much more motivating to try to win something in a drill than to run in circles by yourself. We already do this to some extent, but maybe we should try to add an aspect of competition to as much as possible. I liked the idea of mini-games to put in action what we've been talking about, either full field or 3's or whatever.

Emphasize winning the details.

2. Shake Up the Routine

Familiarity can be good, but it can be a real problem, too. As the season goes on, it's going to be harder to break us of our habits, both good and bad. We should try to think of some interesting ways to make us a little less comfortable with ourselves. New surroundings, new games, new rules for scrimmages, new opponents.

I'd like to see us do some more modified rules scrimmages, like stall-out on 4. Maybe something with added incentive to stretch the field.

I think we we're practicing better earlier in the season because we felt like we were competing for something, like spots on the roster, playing time, etc. Everything was new and exciting. I think we can try to think of some things to bring both of those ideas back to practice. Incentives. People love a carrot dangled in front of them.

3. A few random thoughts:

I still feel like our game would benefit by being opened up. Opposing defenses seem to get a little bit too comfortable once they catch on to our small-ball game. Even if we don't take very many shots, the fear of the deep throw is more important than actually gaining lots of yards and scores by throwing deep. It just the other team more honest and we'd gain more on the in cuts.

To help promote this, I think we can all do a much better job when we throw in the quad. I'm out there pretty often and I feel like people don't stretch out their throws enough. We can all become better throwers if we get better at controlling our OI and IO big throws in addition to the bread and butter flat throw. Even if we only throw flat in games, hucks and throws in the wind will really benefit.

Lately our stack has been drifting too deep. I think it might be a result of people stretching their deep cuts way too far. It's a systemic problem. Handlers don't have good looks down field, and viable longer in-cuts get cut off. Continue looks get clogged. This killed us in the second half of the Davis game. Maybe there are ways to use rules within a mini-game to promote this goal.

4. One last note about our mentality:

I think we need to loosen up a little bit. We've acting like we're the shit, but really we're a team with everything to gain and nothing to lose. The best way to start believing that we're winners is to actually do some winning. Once we believe that we're winners, we're that much more likely to make reality match our perceptions. I think Vegas will be a great chance to refresh ourselves and remember why we play this game in the first place.