There's way too much to talk about when we're in fall camp or during the season, but I always love talking about this sort of stuff during the off-season to get other posters thoughts, belief, etc. I'm a huge, huge believer that the psychology factor of football is where Rhule rightfully spends 99% of his time on.
I don't think it's an accident that we've lost so many close games, how every season we seem to have some sort of statistical anomaly that defies logic. I think Nebraska players feel more pressure to perform at Nebraska then they would at 95% of the other programs across the country. Between our media coverage, the celebrity factor across the community, all the eyeballs on our football program year-round I without a doubt believe it affects the players psychology and amplifies the situational in key moments. I don't know that many ordinary fans recognize a football player at most other programs, but at Nebraska, you can't go to the grocery story without people stopping you. I think all of this is inter-twined and affecting their play on the field, over-thinking, lacking confidence at times, and it magnifies things further when they see social media "another close loss" and so on and so forth.
Adrian was a good football player for us. Then he goes to Manhattan Kansas with way smaller/less everything and tears it up. We've seen countless players be "good" for us and then go to the NFL and become exceptional players early - most notably on the OL.
Does anyone else believe in this stuff? Does anyone know how to fix it? Rhule has talked about this stuff a bunch. Then we have the Notre Dame transfer Rocco come in and say something along the lines of "our team is talented like ND, but our players just need to be confident in their abilities" (paraphrasing) and it made me want to start a discussion on the topic. I half-jokingly half serious tell my friends a dozen times every season that if the entire state took a giant step back from NU football we'd honestly probably win more games. Indiana brought in a good coach in Cignetti and had just about zero pressure to perform last year - in fact, the local fanbase probably had zero expectations for a year 1 coach, at Indiana... you know the rest of the story there. Arizona State picked to finish last, won the conference, had a Cinderella story. I think those programs were playing "free" and played to their abilities. Even Scooter Frost talked about playing free from fear of failure.
It's all just really interesting to me. We have enough talent more years than not, yet we still have the same problems - and I'm beginning to believe more so every year that our major problems have been between the ears. I hope we make a huge jump mentally this year.
I don't think it's an accident that we've lost so many close games, how every season we seem to have some sort of statistical anomaly that defies logic. I think Nebraska players feel more pressure to perform at Nebraska then they would at 95% of the other programs across the country. Between our media coverage, the celebrity factor across the community, all the eyeballs on our football program year-round I without a doubt believe it affects the players psychology and amplifies the situational in key moments. I don't know that many ordinary fans recognize a football player at most other programs, but at Nebraska, you can't go to the grocery story without people stopping you. I think all of this is inter-twined and affecting their play on the field, over-thinking, lacking confidence at times, and it magnifies things further when they see social media "another close loss" and so on and so forth.
Adrian was a good football player for us. Then he goes to Manhattan Kansas with way smaller/less everything and tears it up. We've seen countless players be "good" for us and then go to the NFL and become exceptional players early - most notably on the OL.
Does anyone else believe in this stuff? Does anyone know how to fix it? Rhule has talked about this stuff a bunch. Then we have the Notre Dame transfer Rocco come in and say something along the lines of "our team is talented like ND, but our players just need to be confident in their abilities" (paraphrasing) and it made me want to start a discussion on the topic. I half-jokingly half serious tell my friends a dozen times every season that if the entire state took a giant step back from NU football we'd honestly probably win more games. Indiana brought in a good coach in Cignetti and had just about zero pressure to perform last year - in fact, the local fanbase probably had zero expectations for a year 1 coach, at Indiana... you know the rest of the story there. Arizona State picked to finish last, won the conference, had a Cinderella story. I think those programs were playing "free" and played to their abilities. Even Scooter Frost talked about playing free from fear of failure.
It's all just really interesting to me. We have enough talent more years than not, yet we still have the same problems - and I'm beginning to believe more so every year that our major problems have been between the ears. I hope we make a huge jump mentally this year.
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