Losing your way to success
Sometimes it takes a defeat to know where you stand, see what you've got. The University of Miami Hurricanes and Florida Atlantic University Owls both lost their season-opening football games this weekend.
Or did they? The Hurricanes lost to the Florida State Seminoles 10-7 last night in Tallahassee. The bad news was that they lost, had several turnovers, missed three field goals, the quarterback was sacked nine times, and the team committed a plethora of penalties. The good news is that Florida State could only muster 10 points at home in a game that was given to them. Rookie starting quarterback Kyle Wright looks very good indeed, the defense is outstanding, and the receiving and running back corps will be things of beauty to watch in future games. To a man, coaches and players know they had the game, gave it away, and will recover nicely from this loss. Many questions were answered in a positive way.
Little Florida Atlantic traveled to Lawrence, Kansas, to take on the big-time Kansas University Jayhawks squad. They were supposed to lose by a wide margin (24 points) yet actually led the Jayhawks early in the third quarter. Kansas finally scored enough points to win a 30-19 decision. The Bad news? The Owls lost. But the good news is that they lost most of their inaugural football team to graduation, 70 percent of the entire team are rookies, yet all of the players and coaches agree that they can really play with the bigger schools - they believe in themselves now. The Owls will struggle this year just to have a winning season, as they must still play Oklahoma State, Minnesota, and Louisville along with some Sun Belt Conference foes. But Coach Schnellenberger, his staff, and players will go into every game thinking they can win. And who knows -- they may steal a victory from one of those big schools. Many questions were answered in a positive way.
The moral of the story? There is none except that losing stinks. But I remember back in 1983 when the Hurricanes started a rookie quarterback against the Florida Gators and lost, 28-3. The quarterback was Bernie Kosar, the coach was the very same Howard Schnellenberger, and the Canes went on to an 11-1 season and the first of several National Championships.
But losing still stinks.