I am among the least qualified football analysts on BP, but watching the game something occurred to me that also occurred to me while watching the LSU game last year. It appears to me that the Buckeyes - in general - do not believe in themselves. It looks to me like one of the major problems with the program is team psychology. And I think this because of the experience that I've had watching the Gators and the butt sniffers from Athens.
I went to UF in the mid to late 70s. During the 70s and early 80s we played our version of The Game (The World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party) fielding some very talented teams (so talented, Coach Pell got us on probation, but I digress) that should have won a game against the Poodles. But here is the deal: No matter what the situation, no matter how much we led by or how much we were favored, we KNEW we would lose to Georgia. Not only did the fans know it, the players
knew it. If we were ahead by six late in the game, everyone was thinking "
God No!...we will lose by one point" instead of thinking "
we will put another six on their ass." Sure enough, after a defensive stop, while watching a mutt punt we'd be praying "don't drop it, don't drop it, don't -SHIT!" as the ball was fumbled and the mangy ones went on to score the winning TD.
Now, this was not one game. Or two games. Or five. EVERY DAMN YEAR we'd lose to those assholes, and they'd bark in our faces and tell us that there was no way they would ever lose to them.
Enter Spurrier. Say what you want about him, he dominated the Mutts. We killed them. Every year. They changed coaches. Then changed again. Then again. Then yet again. They all got whipped. One got so angry after hearing a post-cocktail party SOS quote that he had to be held back from looking for him. He was quoted as wanting just five minutes alone with Steve in an alley. We loved it, of course, as the Ole Ball Coach was so in their heads that they had no response. . They were the ones who made the stupid penalties. They were the ones who ended good drives with false starts and personal fouls. I made an on-line bet with a Mutt fan in 2002 for the Cocktail Party. Georgia was undefeated and looking to a MNC berth. UF had Zook, and was not a very good second half team, being constantly shut down in the second half while giving up game winning scores in a prevent defense mindset. I was offered a bet: for a year have my on-line sig say (fill in the blank) 2002 Cocktail Party Champion in large font and the winner's team colors.
It was an SEC board, so I took the bet. I did it because I knew the poodles had not beaten us in forever, that they would play tight, that they would think in the back of their mind "
we've only beaten the Gators one game in thirteen years, if we lose it will be the end of the world." And we won. Some other team went on to play Miami that year.
So my rambling point is this: I see the same type of doubt in the eyes of your team. I saw what appeared to me to be a "
Oh no! Not again" psychology when things started going bad in New Orleans. Erin Andrews said last night that she saw the offense looking listless and beaten well before the game was over (while the defense were still jacked and pumping their teammates up) Whether this is TB's lack of leadership or what, I am abso-damn-lutely familiar with a reality that says that a psychological mindset that has a deep fear of losing can paralyze a good team into making stupid penalties and poor execution. It is insidious, it is hard to diagnose, harder to prevent and impossible to cure. Well, not impossible, but difficult. The one cure is to have a beat down of that opponent. Better to beat that ass for several years in row.
And yes, I know things go in cycles. But it is more than that. It is - sometimes - a situation where the team, for all the outward displays of bravado and confidence - does not believe in itself. When they see the other team gash your D for a long run and think "
we can't stop them." When the other team's DEs are blowing around your linemen and teeing off on the quarterback for another three and out, and they go back to the bench and sit there not looking at each other or talking. And then the next series they hold and false start because they think "
I can't win the one on one battle by myself because the other guy is better than me"...whether it is truth or not. I have seen that. And when it happens it can happen even when there is no clear talent differential. ( Don't get me wrong, I think USC is deeper than y'all - they are scary talented)
The worst thing is, not only does it paralyze you, but it makes the other side think that they are supermen. And so - without the doubt in their minds - they are free to react and be aggressive. In a game where the hole is open for only a half second for a back to make his cut, or for a DB to bite on a juke move on a route, it can be the difference.
I may be wrong as hell, but I got the clear impression that psychologically the Bucks were more "
Shit - here it comes, another beating", than "
F*** You, you got lucky, and I'm about to mess you up!"
Psychology is the difference is winning and losing, when elite athletes compete. That is why the elite athletes in every sport retain sports psychologists to give them the edge in high level competition. I may be wrong, but I think you have lost that battle. I think that the last several years of doubting - the constant ESPN "The Big-10 is no good" - is not just an annoyance, but something that has to an extent been internalized.
I may be totally full of crap. And I have to admit that losing to what may be the BCS Champion in football may not turn out to be anything but losing to three really good teams three years in a row. January 2007 to today is not that long a time, and so my UF-UGA comparison is just or more likely to be full of crap than some expert. But because of my experience watching the UF-Mutt games, and see...
knowing..how psychology and psychology alone has affected the series, coupled with the way the last two Big OOC games have gone (the string of unanswered points after a lead), I have to wonder. And I hope I am wrong. I hope so because it is far easier to fix blocking schemes than to fix psyches.
So I am not trying to be insulting to the team at all, and certainly not kicking you when down. I am just putting out a possible reason for the last two losses that match what I have seen in my lifetime of watching football, where a talented team with a good coach suddenly looks like an undisciplined doppleganger for no explainable reason. I think that they may have bought into the "not good enough" myth enough so that when things go bad they try too hard, question themselves, and lose the intangibles that make up a winning program. Swagger. Confidence. Whatever. It seems like it has been lost since LSU. (Not Glendale, for that was thought to be an aberation.) I have no idea how to get it back, save some serious ass whippings on some OOC elite teams.
Tough times ahead. Just like when I sat in the stands in a 44-0 defeat of my Gators in Jacksonville yelling at game's end "It's Great - to be - a Florida Gator", I know it is still great to be a Buckeye. It games were all easy to win, winning them would not be worth much.
