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Ohio State football must quickly overcome its mistakes to win it all

Umito November 9, 2024

The ability to move forward quickly is not exclusive to athletes. It’s just that the negative impact of not doing so is more immediate in a stadium, arena, or playing field.

Dwell on a missed tackle or abandoned pass one second longer than you should have and you risk falling into another missed tackle and dropped pass moments later. In sport, the past has an absolute impact on the present and the future. Sometimes for the better. Often for the worse.

Learning to overcome a mistake is part psychological trick, part emotional wiring. It’s in the DNA. Self-confidence is essential to controlling negative thoughts. Some athletes are more confident in their abilities than others, which allows them to bounce back more quickly from bad plays. For some it takes longer. THE demons discouragement and despair are not easily cast into the abyss.

Where things get complicated, at least in team sports, is that a poor performance affects the group. In football, 10 players doing their job to spec is not enough. If the 11th player throws an interception, the walls collapse.

Ohio State is 7-1 and No. 2 in the first college football playoff rankings entering Saturday’s game against Purdue. The Buckeyes’ goal is to win a national championship. The path to this destination will include more rugged terrain. Fumble. Missed blocks. Deadly penalties.

OSU’s progress in December and January depends in part on the players’ ability to bounce back from those mistakes. Too often, strength is considered purely physical, when mental recovery is the best measure.

With that in mind, I spoke with four Ohio State players about how they’re leaving the painful past in the past. Each of the four experienced moments of anguish. Here’s how they evolved.

∎ Cornerback Denzel Burke. The senior spoke with reporters Wednesday for the first time since he struggled mightily in the 32-31 loss to Oregon, when he was beaten twice on long passes. PFF gave Burke a season-low grade of 41.8 out of 100 for his overall performance against the Ducks. He recovered well against Nebraska two weeks later; his score of 70.9 out of 100 was more in line with the coaches’ expectations.

Burke said that handling the highs (making interceptions) and lows (giving up touchdowns) is “the life of a corner player” and that his ability to move on to the next play has improved since arriving in Columbus he four years ago.

“Definitely as a freshman,” he said of his propensity to obsess over mediocre play. “But I’m pretty experienced now. I played a lot of football, and you just have to keep (believing in yourself), and as you play more ball, you get used to those moments.

Burke credited his faith with helping him overcome work-related challenges and helping him understand that football is not a matter of life and death.

“It’s just to have more fun, bring more energy to the team and refine my anger,” he said, adding that he felt “dry” after the match. Oregon game. “Nebraska was a good step in the right direction.”

Jim Knowles: “There’s only so much you can do in the heat of the moment. »

Ohio State defensive coordinator Jim Knowles said that when a player is struggling during a match, it is essential to focus on their training because coaches have little time to correct errors based on technique.

“(Mistakes) happen in practice and you can coach them in practice, where you can see where a guy goes in the tank or fights,” Knowles said. “So you try to emphasize and show those examples during training, but during a match it’s all about how he was coached.”

∎ Quarterback Will Howard. The fifth-year senior has completed 73.2 percent of his passes for 1,977 yards and 19 touchdowns, but it’s his five interceptions, including last week’s pick six at Penn State, that keep him up at night .

Howard, like Burke, has come a long way in learning to overcome his mistakes.

“I would say I was bad at it my freshman and sophomore year (at Kansas State),” he said. “I’ve felt it so many times. In 2020, I threw eight touchdowns and 10 picks. I was having trouble returning the ball and didn’t know how to return it. It was my junior year that I finally realized how important the next play after that pick is.

The turning point came when Howard threw a pick-six against West Virginia in 2022, but bounced back with two touchdowns.

“It took me a few knocks and bumps early in my career, but once I got over that, it’s all about how you react. As much as I would love to go back and change this bad game, you can’t. So go on and do it right.

Howard worked with OSU sports psychologists to manage his positive and negative emotions in the game and credits his mother, Maureen, with emphasizing to him that mental preparation is as important as physical.

“I want my body to be ready for the game, but what do I do to recover my brain, whether it’s taking some time to step away from the game, maybe after the game. Escapes, but also a feeling safe. When I was young, I would make a mistake and think, “Am I good enough?” Now it’s like, “I am.” single piece shake who you are.

Howard’s faith also benefits him after he plays a bad game.

“Play for one a bigger goal helps you overcome obstacles,” he said.

Will Howard shows “talent” for moving on quickly

Ohio State coach Ryan Day believes recovering quickly from mistakes is one of Howard’s strengths.

“He has a gift for it,” Day said. “There’s a fine line between making a mistake and ‘Well, move on to the next room’ and ‘Wait, I have a major problem here.’ What we try to do in practice, and what I try to do, whether it’s the quarterback, the kicker, the left guard or the corner, is make it difficult for them in practice .When they make a mistake, just cover them so they feel what it’s going to be like in a game, and then you watch to see how they react. If that play bogs them down for the rest of practice, then. you know we have work to do here.

∎ Receiver Jeremiah Smith. For all positive games the true freshman has done this season, there were still some issues, including dropping his first pass, being called for offensive pass interference against Oregon, and stuttering his steps on a long pass against Penn State that cost OSU a touchdown.

But Smith sounds like a veteran when he discusses putting the negativity behind him.

“It’s football. You have a lot of plays left, so you can’t (blame yourself) on one play,” Smith said, adding that one of the keys to moving on is accepting blame without pointing fingers at others, which can create distrust of others. seeps into future pieces.

“When I don’t play, or the ball doesn’t come my way, or I drop it or I can’t reach it, I feel like it’s my fault,” he said. he declared.

Example: Smith blamed himself for Penn State’s long ball error, saying he expected the ball to go to wide receiver Carnell Tate, so he “gave up that trot.” It’s for me. But I just have to move on and continue playing later.

∎ Kicker Jayden Fielding. The junior is 5 of 6 on field goals this season, but missed a 42-yarder against Oregon and threw three kickoffs out of bounds against Marshall.

“It’s all about mindset. You can never have a negative mindset in any sport, because if you do, you’ll dig yourself deeper into a hole,” Fielding said, citing Howard’s game against Penn State as an example of a strong rebound .

“Will went out and got a bad start, came back and bounced right back. That’s exactly what you do if you’re a competitor,” he said. “You have to have a short-term memory.”

Fielding talks to his father about confidence in his preparation, which calms the kicker when the pressure mounts.

“He’ll watch the film with me, and we have these moments and he tells me, ‘Trust yourself.’ You’ve been doing it long enough,” Fielding said. “But at some point it’s just about doing what you do.”

And for those times when doing what you’re doing doesn’t go well? Return to the well and start again. But do it quickly.

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