First Football Game Blues & Bluster
Here at FirstDown PlayBook, we think the first game of the season can be a royal pain. At this point, most of you have played your first football game. Some of you in California and Tennessee have two games under your belt. Good for you. You can now enjoy the routine that comes with playing every seven days.
For you football coaches who are feeling pretty good about yourself or licking your wounds after your season opener, this is for you. It is not hard to understand why the first game is so important to football coaches and your team.
You play’em one game at a time, right? Well, that first game is the next game on your schedule for eight or nine months. You and your football team work all off-season in winter conditioning, spring practice, summer 7on7 and weight lifting, looking at that one game. The season opener.
After a demanding summer camp, the day finally comes and your team plays another team who has been looking at you on the schedule for the same amount of time. After four quarters of football in your first game, you either win the game or lose the game.
It’s Easy For A Coach To Put Way Too Much Emphasis On The First Game Of The Season
You and your team are either elated to be 1-0 and still undefeated or crushed that you put in all of that work and lost the opening game. Keep in mind that you may have won that game with a last second field goal. The difference of this field goal flying between the uprights or not will often determine how you feel about and how you coach your team the next week.
That’s where the mistake is made. Let’s stay with this made or missed field goal to win the game. Odds are, that field goal has nothing to do with your unit. However, football coaches will often sulk and be harder on their position unit if they lose and be more positive when they win that game.
The obvious correct way to handle a first game loss, or win is to go right back to work and correct. Regardless of the outcome of your first football game, I will guarantee you that you have plenty to correct. It’s what makes being a coach so great. Win, lose or draw, a good football coach will go right back to work and teach.
Regardless Of Your Season Opener Outcome, Your Job Is To Correct & Improve
So for you who are walking into your school building, or driving onto your campus today either 1-0 or 0-1, remember this. Your next game and all of the others are going to come at you and your football team a lot faster than the opener.
Your ability to correct, teach and ultimately improve your players is what matters. Most of the time at the end of a football season when a football team is 9-3 or 4-7, no one really can remember a lot about the season opener. Your team has improved so much that it is irrelevant, and that’s a good thing. From all of us here at FirstDown PlayBook…Have a great week of practice.
