Damn.
It is before 6 am Saturday morning, Sept. 25, 2021:
GameDay in Gainesville, against the Tennessee Volunteers—and I am wide awake.
The game itself isn’t scheduled to kick off until after 7 pm Eastern TONIGHT, so I need to settle down, relax, maybe even go back to sleep for awhile somehow, if I can...Otherwise this will be one hellishly long, uptight day!
I still feel this is our game to win, even dominate, if we just settle back, “play OUR game”, as they say: Let it come to US.
We need to learn how to DO this once more: Pace ourselves, hit our peak, ready to play when it’s TIME to play.
Just as fans: Let the OTHER guys get nervous!
Urgency is one thing—a GOOD thing. But “anxiety”, well, too much for too long saps your strength.
Takes the fun out of things for the fans—but left unchecked in the locker room can absolutely threaten individual player and overall TEAM performance!
Routine, pacing, experience ...Building a HABIT OF SUCCESS is the best defense against it.
I leave THAT to Mullen and his staff. Me, I’m gonna try and go back to sleep!
See y’all on the “Game Day thread” in a bunch of hours, I guess. Purposely DIDN’T put this there. Bad enough I’m up and going through this...Here’s hoping that proving ourselves TO ourselves and the growing habit of confident victory allows us ALL to relax and more ENJOY these games, and GAME DAY, again, as time goes on.
We should never become complacent, arrogant, or begin to take it for granted—as fans OR as players. But we SHOULD be able to enjoy watching our team more and more enjoy THEMSELVES out there!
THAT’S the “FUN part” of this process, hopefully of the very time we’re going through now.
It is before 6 am Saturday morning, Sept. 25, 2021:
GameDay in Gainesville, against the Tennessee Volunteers—and I am wide awake.
The game itself isn’t scheduled to kick off until after 7 pm Eastern TONIGHT, so I need to settle down, relax, maybe even go back to sleep for awhile somehow, if I can...Otherwise this will be one hellishly long, uptight day!
I still feel this is our game to win, even dominate, if we just settle back, “play OUR game”, as they say: Let it come to US.
We need to learn how to DO this once more: Pace ourselves, hit our peak, ready to play when it’s TIME to play.
Just as fans: Let the OTHER guys get nervous!
Urgency is one thing—a GOOD thing. But “anxiety”, well, too much for too long saps your strength.
Takes the fun out of things for the fans—but left unchecked in the locker room can absolutely threaten individual player and overall TEAM performance!
Routine, pacing, experience ...Building a HABIT OF SUCCESS is the best defense against it.
I leave THAT to Mullen and his staff. Me, I’m gonna try and go back to sleep!
See y’all on the “Game Day thread” in a bunch of hours, I guess. Purposely DIDN’T put this there. Bad enough I’m up and going through this...Here’s hoping that proving ourselves TO ourselves and the growing habit of confident victory allows us ALL to relax and more ENJOY these games, and GAME DAY, again, as time goes on.
We should never become complacent, arrogant, or begin to take it for granted—as fans OR as players. But we SHOULD be able to enjoy watching our team more and more enjoy THEMSELVES out there!
THAT’S the “FUN part” of this process, hopefully of the very time we’re going through now.