Nicolet game

A very satisfying effort today leads to the first victory of the season, a 14-12 victory over Nicolet in a very exciting game for the second week in a row. Glad we ended up on top in this one.

A lot of things made me happy about our effort today. First, our defense outscored Nicolet's offense, 8-6, due to a defensive touchdown (for the second week in a row) and a safety. Second, we moved the ball extremely well, and if not for a few mistakes inside the ten yard line, we could've scored 2-3 more touchdowns. In the second half, it became clear: we were going to do the same thing over and over, and I'm not sure we were going to be stopped unless we stopped ourselves. I might've called 2 or 3 different plays, at the most, the entire second half. Nicolet knew what was coming, and we knew that they knew...we just didn't care.

But I think what I liked most about this game was the way we closed the deal. 4th and 4, just a minute or two to go, and we were able to get Nicolet to jump offsides with a hard count to pick up the clinching first down.

We preach to the players in practice over and over and over that we will not be too hard on them for physical mistakes, because those will always happen. However, we want to eliminate mental mistakes because those are the things that are always within your control. The team demonstrated that they were up to that challenge in today's game, and with the game on the line, our players were mentally strong, and that's a huge reason we won.

You also have to give Nicolet credit for their effort. They didn't quit, and had they recovered their onside kick (and they almost did), who knows how this game turns out. Sometimes the ball bounces in your favor, and fortunately the ball bounced in our favor today.

As good as it feels, there's still plenty to work on. We gave up another special teams touchdown, and we stalled our drives way too deep in Nicolet territory several times today. We always tell the players not to get too high when things go your way, or too down when they don't...and we still have plenty of work to do to finish this season out right.

Practice at Monday at 5pm, as usual. Practice will end around 6:30pm (or when it gets too dark). See you then.