AJC > Sports > Columnists > Archives > 2005 > September > 08 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USTask for Jackets is to maintain focus
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
For the sake of focusing, Woody Hayes used to lock his Ohio State players in a monastery before Rose Bowl games. Then there was Jackie Sherrill motivating his Mississippi State bunch to rip Texas by castrating a bull. While I matriculated at Miami (Ohio) University, the head coach always smashed a pumpkin on the locker room floor to signal that rival Bowling Green and its wretched orange uniforms had arrived on the schedule.
Are you listening, Georgia Tech players, suffering from college football’s version of attention deficit disorder? I’m guessing the Yellow Jackets coaches did much this week to keep their players thinking about North Carolina on Saturday instead of last week’s upset at Auburn, the latest Young Jeezy video and everything else.
Well, did Tech coaches do something along these lines?
“If there was a magic trick to keeping players focused, then none of us would ever have a problem,” said Tech offensive coordinator Patrick Nix. “There’s a lot more to trying to keep guys focused than people think. You never know when that big test in school is coming up, and you never know when a girlfriend is going to break up with a guy. What’s going on [with the Hurricane Katrina aftermath] also has affected several of our guys. We had one player who had to go to his grandmother’s funeral at the beginning of last week. We’ve got to realize that a guy who is 18 to 22 years old is going to have a lot of distractions.”
Exhibit A: The Jekylls (as in Jekyll and Hyde) as opposed to the Jackets (as in, why has Tech been so dramatically erratic during the Chan Gailey era?).
Since Gailey joined the Jackets before the 2002 season, each of their huge victories over North Carolina State, Auburn (the first time), Maryland and Clemson were followed by huge losses. The worst of the worse was Tech’s 41-17 disaster at Duke after the Maryland game. You also had the Jackets getting plastered last season at North Carolina (34-13) after their miracle over Clemson at Death Valley.
This shouldn’t happen, not as often as it has to a Tech program with at least decent talent. After all, monasteries, bulls and pumpkins notwithstanding, the truly good teams find ways to keep the lows from canceling the highs of a season.
Exhibit B: Nix’s 1993 Auburn squad that played 11 times without a loss. You don’t go undefeated by keeping one eye on the past and the other on the future. So what were the tricks used by those Tigers to keep both eyes on the present?
“The big part of it was that we didn’t have a bunch of tricks. We just had a bunch of seniors who were playing for us, and generally speaking, seniors are able to keep their focus better than freshmen and sophomores,” said Nix, a former Tigers quarterback. “In those days, you had a lot more than 85 scholarships, so you really didn’t have a lot of young guys in the lineup. The older guys make fewer mistakes, and life for them is a lot more stable than it is for others.”
For the record, Tech has five seniors starting on defense and three on offense, which means the Jackets have enough players who should know better. Even so, veteran leadership often isn’t enough, because such almost was the case for that undefeated Auburn team. Those Tigers won by less than five points against Ole Miss, Vanderbilt and Florida.
That Auburn team still won, though. Which really is the point: If the Jackets wish to flirt with the elite this season, they must discover ways to triumph more often than not in spite of distractions.
“The important thing is that we’re in a thing called life, and it’s a lot bigger than football,” Nix said. “If you didn’t have any school, and if you never had any tragedies, and if you never had anything go wrong, that’s one thing. But from Coach Gailey on down, we want to teach our guys about dealing with life.”
That’s fine. Just teach Tech players about dealing with life and whoever is next on their schedule â€â€? especially after huge victories.
Permalink | Comments (15) | Categories: Tech / ACC, Terence Moore
Comments
Commenting is now closed for this entry.
By wes
September 8, 2005 09:33 PM | Link to this
Life bigger than football? What in the hell is he talkin’ about?
By AJC
September 8, 2005 09:45 PM | Link to this
Terence, WHAT is this article? We pay you to stire up race issues where there are none. We don’t pay you to be a good journalist. At times, you are showing way too much ability to be the kind of writer we want.
By JJGrogan
September 9, 2005 05:46 AM | Link to this
Kudzu is overgrowing my yard…talk about distractions…but, most of the Jackets probably don’t have yards…so beat NC…go Jackets…focus, hocus, pokus…
By Jackets fan
September 9, 2005 10:41 AM | Link to this
I think UNC is in trouble. I think Tech is about to unleash all their disappointments from letdown games on them this Saturday. Why do I think this? Because after all those big wins, I don’t recall the cupcake opponent for the follow up week being discussed a tenth as much as UNC has been discussed this week. I think we have Tech’s coaches to thank for that. They haven’t let the media forget who Tech plays this week by not talking about Auburn much, and I’d suspect the players have gotten it 100 times worse. I feel a sense of focus that was lacking in the past. But I’ll be on hand at the Flats on Sat. to see for myself if they’ve exercised those “letdown” demons.
By ben
September 9, 2005 12:52 PM | Link to this
Nix did an interview before the Auburn game with a local reporter saying his dream was to come back and coach at Auburn. Thank God he’s not really the offensive coordinator, just Chan’s lackey.
By Paul Ramirez
September 9, 2005 02:05 PM | Link to this
Moore is right on target here. We have shown a propensity to not focus, yr after yr - So,Coach Gailey etal - do something different for Carolina - Please! My daughter is a Freshman & I tell her “back in 1966, I never went to a losing game” I am pulling for that to happen again, for her.
By Rudy
September 9, 2005 03:00 PM | Link to this
It’s not unusual for the North Avenue Trade School to start the year with a win and then completly fall apart. This will happen again this year beginning Saturday. North Carolina will roll in between the dumpsters and the score board will be turned off as soon as the final gun sounds. Chain Gang Gailey cannot change history. Go DAWGS!!
By Chris B
September 9, 2005 03:11 PM | Link to this
As usual GREAT article Mr. Moore. You continue to write outside the box…often too many columnists say the same old dribble that you just read the other day.
By wes
September 9, 2005 03:13 PM | Link to this
Come back to this blog on Monday/Tuesday Rudy. Please, please come back. You are sooooooo absolutely wrong about this one. GT 31, UNC 10.
By Bennett
September 9, 2005 03:25 PM | Link to this
Good article. Shows what you can really do when you are not stirring the race issue. Keep up the good work!
By Rudy
September 9, 2005 03:33 PM | Link to this
Wes, It never fails, big win followed by a loss. Example; Last year win over Clemson followed the next week by getting blown out by DUKE!! It’s just in the water up there. Not yo fault, It just happens.I don’t see how you fans have endured all these years. I guess thats why 90% of the time the stands up there are only half filled.By the way, why do they turn the score board off so quickly after a loss??? (which is VERY often)
By mem
September 9, 2005 05:30 PM | Link to this
The track record is there, Rudy, no doubt. But I don’t think for one second they’ll drop this one. So much has been made this go ‘round about them overlooking opponents that they CAN’T overlook them this time. Rookie QB and new RB… Tenuta is licking his chops. They very well might flub one they shouldn’t later on down the line, but it won’t be this week. Mark it down.
As for the scoreboard issue, I haven’t noticed at Tech, but a ton of schools also do it. I guess the theory is to not give the opponents the satisfaction of taking scoreboard photos. However, I believe the satisfaction is actually greater by watching the opponent kill the scoreboard… pretty funny stuff.
By techaholic
September 9, 2005 08:55 PM | Link to this
Unfortunately, Chan has laid the ground work for this article to be written. His propensity to lose after a big win is why most GT fans will wait to see the season play out.
IMO I still think he’s just another medicore NFL coach who may have a good season once and awhile. I don’t see this coach consistently in the Top 25.
And, should Coach Tenuta leave for any reason …. WOE IS TECH!
By Techster
September 10, 2005 06:11 AM | Link to this
Rudy I have been to Athens several times when Tech played the puppies and when we win the plug is pulled on the scoreboard very fast!!!!
By John
September 10, 2005 06:28 AM | Link to this
Rudy, this is a Tech comments page. WHY are YOU here unless you just want to stir up trouble like you trailer-trash redneck UGAg fans like to do?