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cuseroc Offline
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This smuck Mike Zemek, I think his name is wrote about the schools in each conference that should have mental toughness. Notice that he left out the BE, but has a section for each bcs conference and the MWC. When I emailed him asking why he did not have a section for the BE and did not mention the BE, he responded back to me saying "did I not mention Louisville?" Yeah he said one smalll sentence about Louisville in the MWC section, when discussing Louisville. Below are the emails. What a smuck!


Did I not mention Louisville?

Matt

>From: Cuseroc
>To: mzemek@hotmail.com
>Subject: Mental attitude Article
>Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2005 11:08:36 -0700 (PDT)
>
>I noticed that you mentioned at least one team from
>all of the bcs conferences except the BE. A further
>slap in the face is that you mentioned Utah from the
>MWC. You dont seem to think that the BE is even worthy
>to mention at least one team? Why is that? Or do you
>not think that any of the BE yeams have any mental
>toughness?
>
>I look forward to your reply. Thanks.
>
>
>

Here is his article


If certain teams have a psychological edge going into the 2005 season, fans of the teams left out of the discussion might wonder why their teams don’t have a mental edge. With this in mind, let’s explore some of the teams in some of the conferences that could have a mental edge, but can’t be put at the top of the list… at least not now.

ACC: Maryland, Virginia, Miami, North Carolina, Georgia Tech

The Terps, Cavs and Canes might all have the kind of mental edge that comes from a season of struggle. The hardships and downers faced by each team in 2004 could produce the chip-on-the-shoulder attitude that leads to a big, bad and bold performance in 2005. But it’s instructive to remember that not all teams are able to succeed as a result of being pissed off, because anger—if only left at that—is a purely negative emotional source. At some point along the line, there has to be a newfound sense of joy, happiness or pleasure for a team to truly and fully catapult itself to a better mental place and a more successful position in the college football pecking order. How Maryland, UVA and Miami blend joy (or don’t) into their quests for renewal will affect their mental toughness.

With the Tar Heels and Yellow Jackets, you have two programs that showed promise and potential in encouraging 2004 seasons. However, each team got smacked enough times that they can’t be tabbed as surefire mental steamrollers for 2005. It’s wait-and-see with these two teams, just as much as their other three competitors in College Park, Charlottesville and Coral Gables.

Big Ten: Ohio State and Michigan

Why wouldn’t these teams have more of a mental edge than Iowa? For Ohio State, the clouds that surrounded Maurice Clarett have now drifted, at least a little bit, to Troy Smith. This is not an assessment of guilt or blame, just an acknowledgment of the persistent presence of controversy around Buckeye Football. Is the controversy justified? That’s irrelevant to this discussion. The point is that the controversy exists, and that can’t help but cloud one’s ability to gauge just how it will affect Smith, an offensive sparkplug, and the rest of the Buckeye team by extension. Not playing against Miami of Ohio will reduce Smith’s in-game reps before that remotely important game against Texas. One doesn’t know whether Smith and the whole Buckeye team will soar or stumble in that contest. It’s just too open a question, too volatile a situation, to be able to make a confident prediction.

For Michigan, Chad Henne and Michael Hart—two evidently special and gifted players—will nevertheless face the increased scrutiny of each Big Ten opponent as sophomores who are known entities. Plus, a certain guy by the name of Braylon Edwards won’t be around. One can suspect that Henne and Hart will show the requisite amount of mental toughness needed to thrive in 2005, but that’s hardly a given at this point. Wait and see.

Big XII: Every North Division Team and Oklahoma

Everyone in the Big XII North had some overwhelming moments of pain last year. Even super-duper overachiever Iowa State had the enormous psychological wreckage of the Missouri game and the consequent failure to reach its first Big XII Championship Game. Each of these teams has the chance to rebound from 2004 with a new and improved attitude, but no one really knows who will make that transformation.

As for Oklahoma, one has to wonder about two things: first, will Jason White’s absence in Norman create a leadership gap, a psychological vacuum throughout the program? Maybe yes, maybe no—it has to play out on the field. Secondly, though, will the humiliation in Miami at the hands of USC be a milestone event that will chip away at the supremely strong emotional armor Bob Stoops has always had—not only at OU, but throughout his assistant coaching stints at Kansas State and Florida? Those questions just can’t be answered, either way. Texas clearly has forward momentum that the Sooners currently lack. Once again, one Vince Young mistake or one bonehead Mack Brown decision could render all this preseason speculation irrelevant, but for the first time in a very long time, it really can be said: if Texas and OU both bring their A-game, it’s the Horns who would actually have the advantage this particular year.

Mountain West: Utah

This is an obvious one: why not say that the dominant Utes have the biggest psychological edge in the conference? Well, unlike Louisville in the Big East, the Utes lose the coach who made the program what it is. Kyle Whittingham could pick up where Urban Meyer left off, but there’s no guarantee. And why is there no guarantee? Because stud quarterback and team leader Alex Smith is gone. One just has to wonder how Utah will respond. The team might answer the bell, but it’s a question mark. The team could still win the league, but Wyoming is the team that figures to exceed its expectations more than any team in the conference.

Pac-10: Arizona State

With the way Sam Keller filled in for Andrew Walter and won the Sun Bowl against Purdue, one could legitimately say that the Sun Devils have extraordinary forward momentum as they enter the 2005 season. And quite frankly, that statement is 100 percent true. Therefore, in order to understand why ASU is not the psychological strong man of the Pac-10, one must simply turn to LA and realize that Matt Leinart defied conventional wisdom by sticking around for a senior season. His leadership quotient and the psychological uplift he gave to the whole USC program means that the school that has won or shared each of the last two national titles has the glue guy under center who can hold things together for a third straight run at the brass ring. It’s hard to sustain a long, long run as the top dog in all of college football for three years, but Matt Leinart’s surprising return—surprising not in light of Leinart’s quality as a person, but in terms of the cultural pressures and expectations that force normal stud athletes (Leinart is certainly, and blessedly, not normal) to pick up the million-dollar payday—has to make USC the team that truly has the biggest emotional edge of any Pac-10 team.

SEC: Georgia and LSU

Why isn’t Georgia the mentally mighty one down South? Three words: no David Greene. Some Dawg fans who, like other college football fans of a similar mindset, instinctively bristle at any outside criticism will view the following comment as a criticism. Other Dawg fans who give college football fans a good name by looking at the bigger picture will see the following comment as the wise and accurate statement it is meant to be:

D.J. Shockley, you’re no David Greene… yet.

That statement is not a criticism of Shockley; it’s meant as a statement of praise for Greene, the winningest D-I college football quarterback EVER, and a leader with the biggest heart a quarterback has ever possessed. Greene often struggled with his accuracy, and didn’t always light up the scoreboard, but he led a team as well as a college quarterback possibly can. The emotional uplift and psychological stability Greene gave his mates in the fourth quarter of a rain-soaked battle against Georgia Tech was a final, fitting and lasting testament to the leadership possessed by the lefty. D.J. Shockley, no longer having to platoon with Greene, might possibly be able to become a big-time leader. But right now, he has a long way to go. It’s not because of anything Shockley has or hasn’t done, but because Greene set such a stratospherically high standard of leadership. Unless or until Shockley becomes a Greene-like leader, one cannot say that UGA will have a psychological edge greater than Tennessee or any other SEC team.
With LSU, let’s be blunt: I’m just not sold on Les Miles. Yes, Nick Saban might have been a carpetbagger who bolted LSU after insisting that Baton Rouge was a good place to be for the long haul, but any justified resentment among the locals toward Saban should not create a sudden case of hero-worship in Cajun Country for the new LSU coach. Simply put, he will have to prove himself, and fast. Saban might have been a taskmaster, but he sure did motivate, so it remains to be seen whether or not this Tiger team will have a winning mental edge in 2005.
04-05-2005 09:31 PM
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Post: #2
 
It does not surprise me. I think we can expect more of that until the season starts. But when the season starts, we will shut them up.
04-05-2005 09:43 PM
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