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Linehan: I think I've heard that one before
By Courtney Linehan
Date Posted: 2008-10-18
By the fifth straight game like Iowa State's 35-7 loss to Nebraska Saturday, it becomes difficult to have any tie to a losing team.
It's tough to put on pads and eye black and get banged around for 60 minutes.
It's tough to straggle in from a tailgate and cheer on the team that falls two plays shy of getting blanked by an opponent barely standing at .500.
It even gets tough to sit in the press box, watch the spectacle unfold, and find a new way to tell the same old story.
Perhaps the toughest job of all goes to the men who must stand up as team leaders and explain to the media just what happened so the media can turn around and try to explain it to the fans.
Five games in a row. Five losses, each one sapping the passion from the players, the coaches, the alumni and the students. It leads to a whole lot of blah.
It becomes cliché.
Saturday, we piled up a whole lot of clichés. ISU couldn't convert on third downs. Nebraska had too many yards of total offense. ISU never found the red zone.
The numbers may change slightly, but it's been the same combination of problems leading to the same result every week.
Coach Gene Chizik's answers in the press conference aren't much better. Saturday after Saturday, the same words.
"I'm proud of our guys because they keep fighting, but at some point that's not good enough," he said Saturday.
"We have to continue to work on and press on and try to find ways to stay in these games."
It's true. But it isn't changing.
Chizik knows the pressure's on. He understands fans are getting anxious for results. He wants to say he's sorry. Yet even that sounds like a familiar plea.
"We are hit and miss in so many areas of our football team right now," he said. "We have got to start putting our fingers in the holes in this dam."
Last season, the Cyclones snapped a six-game skid by beating Kansas State and Colorado. The wins helped resurrect fans' faith in their program.
Ask Chizik how to repeat it, though, and he whips out another coaching cliché.
"That's what our jobs as coaches are right now: to make sure this is not a downward spiral that we can't close the door on."
Fans want answers, and as journalists, it's our job to ask the questions. Certainly, a room full of reporters tossing out the same queries week after week contributes to coaches tossing back the same replies.
Maybe that's why even the players sound like skipping CDs.
"We've got to capitalize on opportunities that are given to us," quarterback Austen Arnaud said about the offense.
"We stress going out there and playing four quarters," defensive end Kurtis Taylor insisted of the defense.
Still true. Still, lines we're heard before.
Some day, they say, they'll turn this ship around. Some day, the Cyclones will get their spark, will learn to execute the game plan and will be paid back for all the work they put in day-in and day-out.
"The results aren't favorable right now as far as anything tangible that they can put their hands on," Chizik said of his team. "I'm really sad about that for them, but I told them this is a man's game. You play this game and you've got to be a man.
"Good, bad or indifferent right now, you've got to be a man, you've got to stand up to the plate next week and let's go again."
One of these at bats, logic says, the Cyclones won't strike out. Until then, be ready for more of the same.
By Courtney Linehan
Date Posted: 2008-10-18
By the fifth straight game like Iowa State's 35-7 loss to Nebraska Saturday, it becomes difficult to have any tie to a losing team.
It's tough to put on pads and eye black and get banged around for 60 minutes.
It's tough to straggle in from a tailgate and cheer on the team that falls two plays shy of getting blanked by an opponent barely standing at .500.
It even gets tough to sit in the press box, watch the spectacle unfold, and find a new way to tell the same old story.
Perhaps the toughest job of all goes to the men who must stand up as team leaders and explain to the media just what happened so the media can turn around and try to explain it to the fans.
Five games in a row. Five losses, each one sapping the passion from the players, the coaches, the alumni and the students. It leads to a whole lot of blah.
It becomes cliché.
Saturday, we piled up a whole lot of clichés. ISU couldn't convert on third downs. Nebraska had too many yards of total offense. ISU never found the red zone.
The numbers may change slightly, but it's been the same combination of problems leading to the same result every week.
Coach Gene Chizik's answers in the press conference aren't much better. Saturday after Saturday, the same words.
"I'm proud of our guys because they keep fighting, but at some point that's not good enough," he said Saturday.
"We have to continue to work on and press on and try to find ways to stay in these games."
It's true. But it isn't changing.
Chizik knows the pressure's on. He understands fans are getting anxious for results. He wants to say he's sorry. Yet even that sounds like a familiar plea.
"We are hit and miss in so many areas of our football team right now," he said. "We have got to start putting our fingers in the holes in this dam."
Last season, the Cyclones snapped a six-game skid by beating Kansas State and Colorado. The wins helped resurrect fans' faith in their program.
Ask Chizik how to repeat it, though, and he whips out another coaching cliché.
"That's what our jobs as coaches are right now: to make sure this is not a downward spiral that we can't close the door on."
Fans want answers, and as journalists, it's our job to ask the questions. Certainly, a room full of reporters tossing out the same queries week after week contributes to coaches tossing back the same replies.
Maybe that's why even the players sound like skipping CDs.
"We've got to capitalize on opportunities that are given to us," quarterback Austen Arnaud said about the offense.
"We stress going out there and playing four quarters," defensive end Kurtis Taylor insisted of the defense.
Still true. Still, lines we're heard before.
Some day, they say, they'll turn this ship around. Some day, the Cyclones will get their spark, will learn to execute the game plan and will be paid back for all the work they put in day-in and day-out.
"The results aren't favorable right now as far as anything tangible that they can put their hands on," Chizik said of his team. "I'm really sad about that for them, but I told them this is a man's game. You play this game and you've got to be a man.
"Good, bad or indifferent right now, you've got to be a man, you've got to stand up to the plate next week and let's go again."
One of these at bats, logic says, the Cyclones won't strike out. Until then, be ready for more of the same.
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