dressedcheeseside
Helluva Engineer
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Lately, I've been thinking about execution. Particularly, OL execution. Particularly, blown assignments. A lot has been posed about what happened in the trenches vs Clemson. Either we didn't go to the right guy (blown assignment/mental error) or we went to the right guy, but just whiffed the block (physical error). Coach said in his presser that it was plenty of both.
The way I see it, these are not independent things. Imo, missing assignments (mental errors) are caused, in large part, by repetitive physical errors. One doesn't perform in a vacuum. Why don't we know our assignments? Why do we get it right in practice, but not in games? What gives? Is the system too complicated?
The answer is simple. It's much harder to execute mentally when you're getting dominated or challenged physically. The physical beating took a significant toll on our mental capacity. We're not exactly perfect against less physical/athletic defenses, I get that, but when dealing with the frustration associated with not being able to do your job even when you get it right, it becomes that much harder to get it right the next time.
Imo, exhaustion, frustration and eroded confidence played a huge roll on why we failed so badly mentally. I also think these things increase physical mistakes because technique tends to go by the wayside, too.
Another major contributor was the ol' deer in headlights reaction. The stage was just a little too big for some of our guys. We saw this at ND last year, as well. This is where youth and inexperience hurts. The more big stages you play, the less effect this has.
The good news is I don't think we ever lost heart, effort, will or determination. We continued to battle and won a few. As CMS said, we did it right some, just not enough and not 3 times in a row. I'm hoping we get it right a lot more vs the Canes.
The way I see it, these are not independent things. Imo, missing assignments (mental errors) are caused, in large part, by repetitive physical errors. One doesn't perform in a vacuum. Why don't we know our assignments? Why do we get it right in practice, but not in games? What gives? Is the system too complicated?
The answer is simple. It's much harder to execute mentally when you're getting dominated or challenged physically. The physical beating took a significant toll on our mental capacity. We're not exactly perfect against less physical/athletic defenses, I get that, but when dealing with the frustration associated with not being able to do your job even when you get it right, it becomes that much harder to get it right the next time.
Imo, exhaustion, frustration and eroded confidence played a huge roll on why we failed so badly mentally. I also think these things increase physical mistakes because technique tends to go by the wayside, too.
Another major contributor was the ol' deer in headlights reaction. The stage was just a little too big for some of our guys. We saw this at ND last year, as well. This is where youth and inexperience hurts. The more big stages you play, the less effect this has.
The good news is I don't think we ever lost heart, effort, will or determination. We continued to battle and won a few. As CMS said, we did it right some, just not enough and not 3 times in a row. I'm hoping we get it right a lot more vs the Canes.
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