Mailbag Question: How do you get this team motivated to play Minnesota

Hi,

How do you get this team motivated to play Minnesota and keep the jug. They have been off the radar as far as rivals go for quite a long time and this is the last trophy we have left in the building so how do we keep it and how do you get the players motivated to play for it.

Seems to me at this time it would be tough to get players motivated especially the seniors and upperclassmen that are shocked by how the season is going.

In Coach Rod press conference, he keeps on beating the drum of going to work tomorrow and they are looking better in practice, but not showing it on game day. Well how can that be game after game after game?

How bad is it to go through something like this every week because I never played football? I played other sports, but I think football is so much more emotion and effort goes into it so how do you build yourself up again to "go to battle" on Saturday.

Harold

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Thanks for the question. Keeping teams focused that are having poor season is one of toughest jobs coaches face. They have already failed to meet many goals and some start to question everything you doing.

They can actually start to tune you out because your words no longer matter. This is especially difficult for first year coach like Coach Rod. He did not recruit many of these players and they may not feel any loyalty to the new regime.

Thing that was worked best in our experience is trying to challenge their pride and the honor it is to pull on that Blue Jersey. Tell them that winning will speak volumes about the character of the team and program. How important it is that win some games to the program.

You can also impress on them how important it will be to their draft status to have good film for scouts to evaluate.

written by CoachBt and ErocWolverine