Mickey on competition and roster spots
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Here's what I don't understand. Are some guys just happy to be here and enjoying the perks? In another thread I expressed my amazement that players don't give 100%.
As a freshman it was all about giving your all for 3 reasons. #1 that's how we were raised. #2 it was about competition to try to move up on depth chart, get on the field anyway possible to letter ( plus chick's dig grass stains and bruises) #3 upperclassmen wouldn't permit it and there were repricussions in practice drills.
As a freshman it was all about giving your all for 3 reasons. #1 that's how we were raised. #2 it was about competition to try to move up on depth chart, get on the field anyway possible to letter ( plus chick's dig grass stains and bruises) #3 upperclassmen wouldn't permit it and there were repricussions in practice drills.
Most athletes don’t care all that much about their sport. Many do it for the perks, others do it just because that’s what they’ve always been good at and they don’t know what else to do.
Like any career or class or activity we partake in, just because you’re good at it doesn’t mean you’re all that interested. And if you’re not interested you’re not gonna work as hard as you could. Nick Bahe and Bo Ruud said it well on a recent podcast episode.
I guess I just wouldn't expect that from div 1/ pwr 5 athletes. Our recent performance sure is explainable then.
Yep!
Plus, most of those guys know pretty soon after getting there if they are ever gonna be a starter or backup or scout team dude.
The options then are to try really hard (but you can only do so much), to accept your role or to transfer.
If I loved the place I was at and enjoyed the perks and my teammates...it would be hard to transfer. And I know we all like to romanticize they "try hard, give 100%" stuff but we are all human and we all realize how it is going to be.
Very few coaches are going to start Johnny Tryhard who is 5'8 and 165 pounds and runs a 4.7 just because he tries hard on each rep when you have Johnny Talent who is 6'3 215 pounds and runs a 4.4 and tries just as hard.
I mean there is only so hard you can try and so good that you can get.
I think that’s just a fact of life. Most people aren’t very hard workers. Being talented at something doesn’t always change that.
I’m sure some programs are better at developing a hard working culture than others, but I’m not going to necessarily say that’s Nebraska’s problem. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. If it is, hopefully Mickey can raise the bar and motivate the talented kids to get it together or ride the pine.
I think the main difference is what you start with.
Like, back in the 90's the players were so talented that even when they were not going 100% they were still good.
We love to reminisce about those teams but as a lot of you know, myself included, most of those guys lived at the bars and at house parties. I can remember after one game, I think it was a noon game but it might have been 2:30 but later that night, by 9pm, I saw Jay Foreman out on O street with some other dudes getting lit up.
Fast forward that to Corey McKewon going out for Halloween, when the team wasn't good, and people freaked the **** out. "Why isn't he lifting weights or watching film"
I think at the elite schools, Bama, Georgia, Ohio St, Clemson and used to be USC, those schools are just stop overs for many of those kids who have themselves penciled in for the League in 2-3 years.
Those cats have to produce in order to become known among the NFL scouts.
Doesn't mean they all work their asses off lifting and doing extra things, likely, many don't, they just may have superior physical talent.
But they do need to put it on display on Saturday's.
When a player gets in those vicious situations at the elite schools, they know they have to produce because they are not the FRIEND of the head coach, the head coach is about winning.
The coaches may like those kids, but they like that $ 10 Million dollar coaching/endorsement contract a whole lot more.
Kick that 5* to the curb and bring in another.
Here's the fact, Dubose blew his knee out his senior year a week before the season started and he was legitimately the front runner for the Heisman that year as he was pre-season number 1 on the watch list. For as good as Clark was, Dubose was the better of the 2 and I loved watching Clark play. I know Dubose turned into the cocaine cowboy when he got to San Fransisco but he didn't do that here and that is fact. One of things that was imposing about DD was, he had probably the most powerful spin move out of any RB in DONU history and I would laugh when a DB or LB would try to tackle him as he would spin out of it throwing the contacting defender away from him with force and no joke. Dude was a beast!
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I understand what Mickey is saying but the Big 10 adopted a guaranteed scholarship back in 2014. What he is saying sounds good in the wide receiver room but I am not sure he has the ability to follow through with it. In essence they are trying to earn playing time roster spots unless the rule has been changed.
Any student-athlete recruited to a Big Ten institution through the offer of an athletic scholarship will be guaranteed the following throughout the course of their enrollment:
Any student-athlete recruited to a Big Ten institution through the offer of an athletic scholarship will be guaranteed the following throughout the course of their enrollment:
- The scholarship will neither be reduced nor cancelled provided he or she remains a member in good standing with the community, the university and the athletics department.
- If a student-athlete's pursuit of an undergraduate degree is interrupted for a bona fide reason, that student-athlete may return to the institution at any time to complete his or her degree with the assistance of an athletic scholarship.
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In the early 2000's I was working in the West Stadium complex on a project. A hot blonde caught my eye, and she sat around waiting for someone for probably 30 minutes. It ended up being an offensive lineman who had been on the team for 3-4 years but had not contributed a single snap of live action, outside of maybe special teams.
Now I don't know how your college experience worked out, but this dude was ploughing a woman that was way out of his league. To quote Pulp Fiction: "It ain't the same league, it ain't even the same f***ing sport." And that's the benefit of being on the football team even if you suck and the team sucks. For some guys, that's enough.
This is true, at a lower level people usually just play sports because their friends are there.
Take this story with a grain of salt, I never played a snap of organized football in my life and still plowed a bunch of blondes way out of my league.
Hell I married one. Still NO IDEA why she wakes up and chooses me on a continuous basis.
In that case Mickey spoke with a little bravado about practicing for keeping roster spots.
Hasn't everyone on this board? Right after a light work out running some 4.4 forties, after benching 225 a dozen times and squatting a few hundred lbs - oh and then a few 360 dunks up in the gym.
You may be telling the truth and I have no reason to doubt you but THAT right there is the ultimate NOT SO humblebrag...
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