BLOG: Factors of football success

A few weeks ago, a story was written in the sports section of The Volante discussing the Dakota Days football game and D-Days in general. D-Days is a time of school spirit and a return of alumni, which is supposed to culminate with a victory by the football team. In this article, it discussed how the game was tied at halftime when the students pulled a “Houdini act” by leaving at halftime. The writer then went on to hint that the max exodus of students caused a major morale loss for the team and the remaining fans, and that’s what caused the University of South Dakota Coyotes to lose the game. So, if I may, I’d like to say one thing: this is a load of malarkey.

The fans are only one factor in a team’s success, namely the buying of tickets, food and merchandise in order for the school to be able to give out scholarships for star athletes. Yes, the crowd can sometimes help rally a defense or make an offensive opponent commit an offside or penalty, but that is the full extent of what we can do. It’s up to the team and its leaders to achieve victory on the field through skill and determination. If a team cannot pull out a win against a so-so team on its homecoming day, then it doesn’t deserve the support of its fans. Any team that loses a game because of a lack of support from the fans is a poor excuse for a football team, and it is frankly insulting to try and pin the loss on students.

In the case of our team, perhaps that’s being overly generous.

Our team didn’t lose the game because the fans left, the team lost because they suck. A team with supposed potential to win doesn’t lose seven out of eight of their games in the first part of the season, nor by so many points. Statistically speaking, the USD is only pulling in a rounded average of 19 points a game, versus the 35 points they lose to an opponent. When a team is literally losing games by a combined average of two touchdowns, extra points and a safety, that’s not an issue with the fans. It’s an issue with the team, and one that Head Coach Joe Glenn and his staff will have to address quickly if they want to turn this around, not to mention keep their jobs.

Make no mistake; it’s not going to be easy for them to build a program that is, at the moment, suffering in several key areas, like their roster and in their recruiting goals. When USD transitioned from a Division II to a Division I school, our roster has been composed of holdovers from the Division II recruiting base. While these players may have been quite competitive at Division II, Division I is a whole different level of competition. The harsh reality is that most of these current players can’t compete at this level. Their opponents are in many ways bigger, faster and more talented than they are. In order to begin building the program, there has to be a greater transition from the Division II recruiting pool up to the Division I level. If this cannot be achieved then we might as well drop back down to Division II, at least then we might have a winning season.

Simply attempting to get into that talent pool is going to be a challenge. These are recruiting grounds that for years have been staked out by other Division I-AA teams, and one that will be tightly defended. Coach Glenn is going to have to be able to convince semi-capable athletes that coming to USD is in their best interest. This is a hard point to sell, considering that USD is ranked by U.S. News as the 199^th best college in the country, which is also the lowest ranking published by them. We’re also currently tied with 5 other colleges for this position, including SDSU. The fact that it’s Vermillion also screws us over when the schools trying to pull these players are in more desirable locations. No player good enough to play Division I ball in South Dakota would want to do that, unless they are desperate or bribed.

And it’s not just getting into the recruiting base that’s going to be an issue; it’s also about getting dependable guys on the squad who’ll make grades. Let’s face it, probably every guy or girl on this campus has a story about one of the stereotypical football players we run into on this campus during class or a party. That’s not to say there aren’t smart and decent guys on the team, some of them are admittedly much smarter than I am and deserve the scholarships they have. But have you ever tried talking to some of these morons who call themselves their teammates? It’s like pounding one’s head against a brick wall. Considering some of their IQ levels, I’m surprised they can remember which shoe goes on which foot.

A big part of the reason they all pass is because the university closely monitors their classes as well as assigning them a horde of tutors, and even then some of them barely scrape by or just outright fail. An example of this I can give is of one of the starters whose name will not be mentioned (for fear of being pounded into the dirt) who had to take film appreciation class twice in order to pass. For God’s sake you spend half of that class just watching movies, how much more help does a guy need? In essence, to try and get the team on track, they need to start bringing in talented and semi-intelligent guys, otherwise this season is going to be repeated again and again. Football is like a business – if you don’t run it efficiently and perhaps even ruthlessly, you shouldn’t be surprised with bad results.

Oh, and before I finish this article, I’d like to say one thing. Can we please stop pretending that D-Days is about school spirit and a collective student unity with its campus? Perhaps that’s what it’s supposed to be about and maybe started off as, but it’s not. D-Days is basically a weeklong event for students to get smashed and do stupid crap, and any administrator being honest with themselves know this to be true. As for the unity BS, all I can say is, take one look at the general apathy and distrust the students hold toward the administration. Students come to USD to get a quasi-acceptable degree and to destroy brain cells on the weekend. End of discussion.