What is Different?

[JCloned]

What is different?

Sunday afternoon I sat watched my son play in a flag football game and listened in on the conversations of a couple Cyclone fans in the background. Two things really stood out to me from their conversation and from what I have seen, their conversation has been replayed across message boards and where every Cyclone fans have connected.

The first thing is that we are an impatient and sometimes fatalistic group of fans. Perhaps it stems from our long suffering in football as the school that never could. We tasted what it was like to have hope and to believe in the heights of the previous era, but could never get over the hump. Perhaps our proudest moment during the “heydays” when we climbed to the top 10 in the polls was so brutally shattered in a blow out loss in Norman, that was a harbinger of what was to come. Our chances at redemption in the Big 12 championship game were cruelly pulled from our grasp by missed field goals and other mind numbing plays. It has seemed to much of Cyclonedom that just as the Cubs are under the curse so too must the Cyclones have a black spot somewhere in our history that has caused us to be likewise cursed. It is understandable in some ways then that today when we find ourselves in the first part of the first year of a new staff that from the first quarter of the Kent State game fans have been thinking here we go again.

Saturday night in the Glass Bowl of the Toledo Rockets surely seemed to confirm what our hearts have feared – only the Cyclones could snatch defeat from victory so effortlessly as the our 11 point lead evaporated in the waning minutes of the game. Nothing has changed. We still can’t win on the road. We still lost to a team no one else loses to. We still can’t finish a game. We still can’t make a game winning kick.

As I sat and listened to their conversation my thoughts turned to game in front of me where the opposing coach was getting down on his players. Wait a minute, these guys are in second grade and have practiced probably four times and are playing their third game and you expect them to run your plays the way you draw them up? That’s the thing, sometimes we get too close and our expectations get disconnected from reality.

It seems to me that as Cyclone fans that we have experienced so much pain that our patience has become fragile. We can’t be patient, because it never works out in the end so we need success now. Impatient and fatalistic. Remember when Jamie Pollard began in Ames, one thing he said was that the fans needed to step up as well. From a financial and ticket standpoint, Cyclone fans have delivered. Where as fans we may have the furthest to go before we arrive is learning to back the team and be fans while we build the team. My biggest fear is not what Coach Chizik will be able to do with the football team, it is how will our fans react when expectations are not met during that process. From the first half of the Kent State game when people around me at Jack Trice said “Just like McCarney” to the UNI, where I kept hearing “Is Cotton calling the plays” to yesterday’s conversation where “we will always find a way to lose” was the refrain, Cyclone fans are struggling to be patient and optimistic.

The second thing that caught my attention was the lack of appreciation for what it takes to build a football program. Basketball coaches certainly have it easier in many ways. For a basketball coach, the limited roster and having high school players more physically equipped to compete at the championship level allows a much quicker impact. More importantly, in basketball the fundamentals are so much more visibly obvious to the casual fan. Last year outside of the human turnover machine, the changes in how players played the game, how they competed was obvious even if the wins were not. The change in our defensive intensity and offensive system was obvious even if the wins were not. People looked at the metamorphosis that was underway and saw the butterfly it could become not just the mess of the individual games.

Football is much different. Not only does the roster size mean talent upgrades take much longer to impact the team, most freshman redshirt and don’t contribute in their first couple of years. In the perhaps the most important positions in the trenches it is not uncommon for players to be in the system four years before they are ready to contribute. Worse yet for new coaches is the changes are not always apparent like in basketball. In football fans look at the outcome of plays, not how you played. Did the line open holes, did they protect the quarterback, and did the defense stop the run? When is the last time you heard fans talk about how the improvements in technique on run blocking by the offensive line? Did you hear people talk about how we noticing how our linebackers have gotten much better at shedding blockers? How about in the secondary, where we corners are not just relying on athleticism to “keep up” with receivers, but footwork, positioning are different than a year ago?

If football fans were able to more readily see the changes that are taking place and how the fundamentals are being built perhaps they would be excited not apologetic about Cyclone football. Last week I posted a story called, “Why I Love This Staff” if you didn’t get a chance go back and read it. This weeks poll on Cyclone Champs homepage puts the expecations question to Cyclone fans.

Yeah it hurts to lose a game like we did Saturday. It is easy to fall into the here we go again game. It is easy to believe nothing has changed. It is easy to be impatient and fatalistic. It is easy to want to focus on basketball. Champions are not built that way however. Champions are built by athletes that go to work everyday and believe. Believe in themselves, Believe in their coaches. Believe in their school Champions don’t stop believing. Champion fans lead the way..

[ISURocks]

Excellent write up. Should be mandatory reading for everyone before they walk into Jack Trice