[martyup]

Here is my two cents on coaching.  You need coaches that can teach the fundamentals at every position.  Those are a dime a dozen.  But, knowing football fundamentals does not make a good football player.  You also need coaches that can teach players how to unleash their inner beast on demand.  This creates players like Skov and Martinez.  This is psychology and physiology training.  Learning how to control your adrenaline levels is critical.  That is the juice that runs the beast engine.  Every player has unique triggers.  One guy might trigger on glory, another on redemption, and another on revenge.  

I had a football coach that told us to envision that the opposing team gang raped our girlfriend (or sister/mother if we didn't have one).  He had us imagine every detail of the attack.  We would do this exercise before a blocking dummy drill and he would ask us to focus all of that hatred into hitting that blocking dummy.  It was an effective method of bringing on a controlled adrenaline rush.

Another trigger he taught was what I call the glory or respect trigger.   He said that on game night, just after sunset, look up at the stars and envision the thousands of high school football games taking place that night all around the country.  Every one of these players could look up and see the same stars that you saw.  Tens of thousands of players were strapping on their helmets and trying to stand out on the field.  Then, think of how you can be the one player that wins the night.  The one player that everyone talks about when the night is over.  The player that all of the college coaches want to meet.

On game night after warm ups, our whole team would go the the basketball gym and lay on the floor with the lights off.  It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.  The coach would give us his motivational speech, including asking us to invoke our triggers.  He asked us to give each other, the coaches, and the school the next 3 hours of our best effort and leave nothing on the field.  Then Queen's "We are the Champions" would play over the gym's sound system as we rose and walked out of the gym, across the track, and onto the football field.

I see Stanford players going through the motions without motivation.  Missing tackles is often the result of trying to make a tackle with the minimum of effort.  The same goes for missing blocks.  If a player had in his mind that his life depended on making a block, I bet he makes it.  I'm confident our players have been instructed on proper technique, they just are not pushing themselves to their maximum potential.  They aren't motivated properly.  Proper self-motivation is how a 3 star recruit plays like a 5 star.

IMO, Shaw needs to find a master motivator to add to his staff.

[martyup]

Here is my two cents on coaching.  You need coaches that can teach the fundamentals at every position.  Those are a dime a dozen.  But, knowing football fundamentals does not make a good football player.  You also need coaches that can teach players how to unleash their inner beast on demand.  This creates players like Skov and Martinez.  This is psychology and physiology training.  Learning how to control your adrenaline levels is critical.  That is the juice that runs the beast engine.  Every player has unique triggers.  One guy might trigger on glory, another on redemption, and another on revenge.  

I had a football coach that told us to envision that the opposing team gang raped our girlfriend (or sister/mother if we didn't have one).  He had us imagine every detail of the attack.  We would do this exercise before a blocking dummy drill and he would ask us to focus all of that hatred into hitting that blocking dummy.  It was an effective method of bringing on a controlled adrenaline rush.

Another trigger he taught was what I call the glory or respect trigger.   He said that on game night, just after sunset, look up at the stars and envision the thousands of high school football games taking place that night all around the country.  Every one of these players could look up and see the same stars that you saw.  Tens of thousands of players were strapping on their helmets and trying to stand out on the field.  Then, think of how you can be the one player that wins the night.  The one player that everyone talks about when the night is over.  The player that all of the college coaches want to meet.

On game night after warm ups, our whole team would go the the basketball gym and lay on the floor with the lights off.  It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.  The coach would give us his motivational speech, including asking us to invoke our triggers.  He asked us to give each other, the coaches, and the school the next 3 hours of our best effort and leave nothing on the field.  Then Queen's "We are the Champions" would play over the gym's sound system as we rose and walked out of the gym, across the track, and onto the football field.

I see Stanford players going through the motions without motivation.  Missing tackles is often the result of trying to make a tackle with the minimum of effort.  The same goes for missing blocks.  If a player had in his mind that his life depended on making a block, I bet he makes it.  I'm confident our players have been instructed on proper technique, they just are not pushing themselves to their maximum potential.  They aren't motivated properly.  Proper self-motivation is how a 3 star recruit plays like a 5 star.

IMO, Shaw needs to find a master motivator to add to his staff.