Is There a ‘T’ in Team?

I recall my senior year, when we rode a superb team effort in the latter half of the season to a win over state 2^nd-ranked Hancock and a sectional title. Our motto was “There is no ‘I’ in team, we win as a team, and we lose as a team”. I remember seeing it in print somewhere, I can’t remember where it was……but it said “There is no ‘T’ in team….” and so on. No relevance, I just thought it was pretty funny at the time, and anyone else who saw it must have thought our team was full of dufus-es. Haha, just a fond memory…

I think and hope the line can apply to our team now. We don’t blow people out like teams with Rich Mokay, Brian Neale, and Nate Rockefeller used to do. On the other hand, the current pack of ‘Dogs has a much better record in the close games than any of those previous teams do.

I remember in the 2007 era making the statement that if you gave me a team like that year’s Walton crew (which rolled to the state Class D title) or instead gave me a team of raw NFL-caliber talent but with the worst coaching you could possibly imagine, I’d take the Class D TEAM any day of the week. NFL-caliber athletes do not a team make. It’s all about becoming something different. It’s nice to have kids with high capabilities, but football is an incredibly complex game, and it takes so much more than fast twitch muscles and L-B-S’s.

Walton is in so many seasons the epitome of this….of making a team that is so much better than its athletes. Delhi has had a pretty good share of them as well. While we do have a pretty good amount of talent this year, I’d love to see us really cross the line where we become more than the sum of our parts.

Bored as I am at times, I definitely get to overthinking things. So, I got thinking about the general “mechanics” of a play in football one day. I kind of broke the play up into 2 parts…first comes the “set-up”, then comes the “execution”. In my mind the set-up phase contributes 2/3 to 3/4 of the success of the play, while the execution phase contributes the balance. The way I’m thinking about these is probably different than what they sound like, so I’ll explain further.

The whole point of the set-up phase is to get the right people to the right place at the right time. It might be to get a running back with the ball in front of a sizeable hole. It might be to get the QB ready to throw a pass to a receiver who is open down the field. Or it might be to get a linebacker filling a hole where the RB is about to come through. There is strategy to get the play developed correctly, and there is skill involved by the players to get to where they need to be. In my mind, this phase is 50% about coaching (placement of the “chess pieces”, ability to communicate it to the players, ability to teach the necessary skills, etc.), 25% about the coachability and mental capabilities of the players (can they remember what they need to do, can they make reads, how much effort will they put into it, etc.), and 25% the athletic ability of the players (can they block, can they react quickly, can they run fast to get open).

The gaining or not gaining of the yards mechanically happens in the execution phase. Now that the hole is there, the RB moves forward. Now that the receiver is open, the pass is made and hopefully caught. Now that the guy with the ball is in front of the LB, the tackle is made. I see this phase as 50% athletic ability (can they run hard, throw or catch the ball, make the tackle, etc.), 25% coaching (refining those skills the kids have as athletes), and 25% pure will and effort.

Assuming a 66/34 split between set-up and execution, that means that athletic ability is only a total of about 34% of the equation here. I personally think that sounds about right. Coaching is about 42%. That leaves nearly 25% in the hands of the kids on game day – how well will they mentally follow the game plan, how much effort will they put in? That 25% is why you see a swing in how teams perform week to week.

The whole point is that such a huge difference can be made in any week with just the proper state of mind. We obviously aren’t going to change our athletic ability at this point in the game, and both Delhi and Walton are blessed with coaches that know X’s and O’s like few others. If we win, it’s with above and beyond effort and buying in to the coaching plan and in to what your teammates are doing around you.

Last week I mentioned how I’d love to see us crank the speed and intensity up just a bit now that it was playoff time. I saw a superb example of that. Jack Fletcher has always been a hardnosed runner, but in his effort last week, I saw a senior that definitely did NOT want to play his last game. I could not believe some of the extra 2-4 yards he picked up on so many occasions, especially on the play right before the first score, when he was driving 4 Candor players for 2-3 yards. I actually thought the effort in the “execution” phase was great from all the backs (we just need to hang on the ball when fighting for yards!), and Fletcher certainly led the way.

If there’s anywhere in that execution phase we could improve, it is certainly in the tackling department. It seems like it’s been an issue all season. Open field tackles aren’t easy to make, but at the stage we are playing right now, they are absolutely necessary. Wrap it up hard, and hold on tight!

Back to Fletcher, in reading through some of my material from the past couple years, and in thinking about him being ever so close to the school rushing record (I’m pretty sure on that), I really don’t think I’ve given him nearly enough press. I’ve always thought the world of him as a player, I just have kind of taken him for granted in these opinion pieces I’ve written. I’ve always been on the lookout of other aspects of the game where we could complement him, but you should know that he is exactly what the doctor ordered…..a big, strong, tough as nails player for both sides of the ball. It would be tough to ask for anything better for this level we play at. After 2-3 games when he was a freshman, I said that he was our next Brian Neale, and I haven’t been the least bit disappointed. That statement was right on the mark I think.

We know how to beat Walton. Executing on that is a different story. Let’s see what we can do Saturday.

Dominance of Eastern Culture – with this year’s Class C and D finals featuring teams exclusively from east of I-81, I got to adding up championships since the state championship era started in 1993. In Class D, the east has won 13 championships in that time, to 4 for the west. In Class C, it is the same margin, 13-4 for the east. I also looked at Class B, which is a bit different, because the teams are different than the Sus vs. IAC type teams being compared in the other classes. Regardless, even there the advantage is 12 for the east and 5 for the west. Note, however that 3 of the “west” teams that won were Sus Valley, Maine-Endwell, and Johnson City, which are basically Binghamton-area schools, as opposed to schools being truly out in the Elmira/Ithaca/Owego direction. It’s tough to say why the east dominates like that. Some of it has been Walton’s dominance I think – having a team that is that good every single year makes any other schools with a shot step up their game to have a chance to get by Walton. Other than that, I don’t know. They obviously have good athletes out that way, as demonstrated by how well they fare in sports like basketball, wrestling, and track.

Picks, all good things must come to an end, and this past week I lost out on BOTH my ability to pick games and my ability to pick how well I’d do. I went 7-2 on the playoffs and 7-3 on the crossovers for a 14-5 (0.737) showing. I had predicted 8-1 and 8-2, so I was off by 2 games total in the wrong direction. 0.800 is completely out of mathematical question now, as my season total is 146-42 (0.777). I hope to catch 2 or 3 of the IVFINALS…..wish the weather weren’t looking so icky. I’ll go with….Corning 44, Binghamton 22; Maine-Endwell 30, EFA 26; Owego 22, Chenango Valley 14; Forks 32, Sidney 28 (offenses slowed a bit in the cooler weather). Note that in my picks before the season started I had Corning over Bingo, Maine-Endwell over Southside, Johnson City over Oneonta, and Forks over Sidney, so I don’t think that’s too bad! I did only get 3 of 7 division titlists correct, though 2 of the other champs I picked got 2^nd place, and 1 team (Whitney Point) actually beat their division champ by 2 TD’s.