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Team Psychology For Big Games

terdferguson

terdferguson

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In sales there is a closing technique called "assumptive sale" or "assuming the close." It's a common tactic where you already assume the the customer has said yes to the sale and you start talking about the next steps. I wish that we would do that with regards to our team's psychology with big games. Instead our coaches did the opposite. They took the approach of talking to our players and trying to convince them that they belong. Herbstreit and Fowler talked about it during the broadcast. This assumes that our players are thinking they don't belong and it's something that needs to be addressed and fixed.

Why is that bad? I strongly believe that this team had plenty of confidence heading into this game. You start having long talks trying to convince them that they belong and now you're planting a seed of doubt that may not have existed at all. Wait a minute, maybe I don't belong? Maybe this is too big for me? Maybe Clemson is too good for us? Wrong tactic. Assume the close. Assume that we are ready mentally and the kids will feed off of that.

I think this mistake manifested itself with all the penalties and mental errors that we made. It sure can't be attributed to crowd noise or an intimidating environment. Clemson played with confidence, we did not.
 
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I work at a leadership Insitute, we train executive on this mindset stuff, we train 35-40 students at um for free every year, I’m trying to get into our athletic dept. it’s huge - mindset that is. We have way too many top level guys to look like we do. Does Clemson have more talent then us, yes...not 30 points more though. A TD or fg yes!!! That’s my problem with the game last night. We looked like a duke team pre David cutcliff playing last night!
 
Not many sets of these at The Hecht...

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hoover437 said:
I work at a leadership Insitute, we train executive on this mindset stuff, we train 35-40 students at um for free every year, I’m trying to get into our athletic dept. it’s huge - mindset that is. We have way too many top level guys to look like we do. Does Clemson have more talent then us, yes...not 30 points more though. A TD or fg yes!!! That’s my problem with the game last night. We looked like a duke team pre David cutcliff playing last night!
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That sounds awesome and I agree 100% with everything you just said. Good luck, I hope you are able to help the athletic department because clearly whatever we are doing right now for mental prep for games like this is wrong.
 
Well we're 2-1 in big games. This our third time being featured on college game day. We won the games we supposed to win. Nobody on this board should be expected a win against Clemson.
My main concern is the team mindset going forward.
 
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I liked this post. Our team has no confidence. Look at their body language. Clemson just has that culture, they don’t think they are going to win. They know. We are still fragile mentally.
 
terdferguson said:
That sounds awesome and I agree 100% with everything you just said. Good luck, I hope you are able to help the athletic department because clearly whatever we are doing right now for mental prep for games like this is wrong.
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I see it, out kids come in playing in the toughest high school leagues in the country yet they lay down like cheap chairs. The decisions they make are crazy. Thanks I’ll continue to work to get in deeper in the school especially athletic dept!
 
dodaniels said:
Well we're 2-1 in big games. This our third time being featured on college game day. We won the games we supposed to win. Nobody on this board should be expected a win against Clemson.
My main concern is the team mindset going forward.
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It's not necessarily playing in a primetime game, it's the mindset going against the best. The other two games don't apply here and aren't comparable to the Clemson game. We were huge favorites against fsu so the coaches had the opposite problem and were probably trying to keep us from being over confident. And against Louisville I doubt the coaches were talking to the players and hoping they would buy in that they belong on the same field as Louisville. There's no way those conversations every happened.
 
terdferguson said:
It's not necessarily playing in a primetime game, it's the mindset going against the best. The other two games don't apply here and aren't comparable to the Clemson game. We were huge favorites against fsu so the coaches had the opposite problem and were probably trying to keep us from being over confident. And against Louisville I doubt the coaches were talking to the players and hoping they would buy in that they belong on the same field as Louisville. There's no way those conversations every happened.
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That's true. I viewed Clemson as a measured stick. Clearly, we not in teir 1 status for obvious reasons (more personnel than scheme). However, that shouldn't be an excuse to not finish the regular season as a top 20 team. This team will be appropriately judged on how they finished the season. And, a lot of this is on Manny. He has to make the appropriate adjustments going forward.

If we finished the regular season with at least 9 wins, nobody should be complaining.
 
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We went into the locker room down by 11 and receiving the kick in the second half.
We're sitting with a first down on their 25 yard line early in the third.
We all were thinking a FG at a MINIMUM at that point.
Then comes the bad pass, bad WR play, INT.

We were in the game to that point. I didn't feel the defeatist mindset at all.
 
Were you in the lockeroom during or leading up to the game? Was Kirby? Was anyone that wasn't officially part of the team?

I get what you're saying, but you come across as thinking you have identified a problem and have the magic solution.

The players know who Clemson is. You always know who the top dog is in sports. You always have some doubt, but our team went in with a plan and thought they were ready. They just annihilated a team in FSU (good or not) that many knew growing up on the field. They were ready to compete.

The game gets going and all their push and shove was met with an opposing force that was bigger, stronger, and faster. It happens, but they never gave up, most never did. In sports, there's a plan, it doesn't always come to fruition. It happens and one thing they all know, they've gotta get bigger, stronger, and faster. There's work to be done, can't never got anyone anywhere.
 
dodaniels said:
Well we're 2-1 in big games. This our third time being featured on college game day. We won the games we supposed to win. Nobody on this board should be expected a win against Clemson.
My main concern is the team mindset going forward.
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Lol at winning “big” games. Nobody expected us to win, last night; however, no one in their right mind expected nor should justify that **** show.
 
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SayWhat said:
Were you in the lockeroom during or leading up to the game? Was Kirby? Was anyone that wasn't officially part of the team?

I get what you're saying, but you come across as thinking you have identified a problem and have the magic solution.

The players know who Clemson is. You always know who the top dog is in sports. You always have some doubt, but our team went in with a plan and thought they were ready. They just annihilated a team in FSU (good or not) that many knew growing up on the field. They were ready to compete.

The game gets going and all their push and shove was met with an opposing force that was bigger, stronger, and faster. It happens, but they never gave up, most never did. In sports, there's a plan, it doesn't always come to fruition. It happens and one thing they all know, they've gotta get bigger, stronger, and faster. There's work to be done, can't never got anyone anywhere.
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No one knows for sure, but lots of what we talk about on here is conjecture based on a couple of known facts. Anyway, the feel I got last night is that we were intimidated, not confident, scared, the moment was too big for us....whatever you want to call it, we didn't play with poise from the get go. They didn't smash us and then we lost our poise. We were making boneheaded penalties and plays that we didn't make against any other team this year early and often in this one. I can't say what the exact fix is, but whatever we did to mentally prepare for this game didn't work.
 
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