Chances are, every college-aged athlete who saw the movie Little Giants growing up can remember the scene when a group of NFL stars step off John Madden's broken-down coach bus and give the underdog Giants a pep talk before their game against the big, bad cross-town Cowboys.
Among the group of heroes were Emmitt Smith, Bruce Smith and Tim Brown. But it was Steve Emtman, the least famous player on the MaddenCruiser, who provided the rag-tag Giants with perhaps the most important piece of advice.
"Just remember," said Emtman, the former professional defensive lineman and No. 1 overall pick in the 1992 NFL Draft. "Football is 80 percent mental and 40 percent physical."
Of course, the numbers don't add up to 100, but Emtman made a good point anyway. When there's such a talent discrepancy on the field -- like today when Penn State faces Buffalo -- the game becomes a mental battle, if it's not one already.
"At this level of competition, when you have top 10 teams in the country or whatever it may be, the difference could be between your ears," said sports psychologist Dr. David Yukelson, who counsels all of Penn State's varsity teams. "How can you remain confident and sustain focus and concentration for as long a period as possible?"
In every game, there is an expected winner and an expected loser. Depending on a person's point of view, the winner or loser could be either team on a given day.
But, generally, when the term "letdown game" is announced, it is in reference to the overwhelming favorite getting caught looking ahead to next week's game instead of focusing on this week's perceived inferior opponent.
Penn State doesn't want to squander its Bowl Championship Series aspirations by looking past Buffalo this afternoon.
One Saturday ago, the Nittany Lions served as hosts to Notre Dame, a university that linebacker Dan Connor described as "the No. 1 school when you think about college football."
The hype for the Fighting Irish's first visit to State College since 1991 was aplenty. Some fans traveled from out of state just to say they were here when the two traditional football powers met, even if they couldn't find a ticket to the second-most attended game in Beaver Stadium history.
Next week, the Lions travel to Ann Arbor to play Michigan in the Big House. The Wolverines are struggling after losing to Appalachian State, a member of the Football Championship Subdivision, formerly known as Division I-AA. But nonetheless, the game is still one Penn State fans are looking forward to given that the Lions haven't defeated Michigan since 1996.
Sandwiched between those two opponents is today's -- Buffalo, a team that finished last football season with a 2-10 record and hasn't won more than two contests since 2001.
Buffalo is not Notre Dame, and it's not Michigan. But the Bulls are another opponent to prepare for, one that stands a chance to win -- no matter how unlikely it may appear. Players and coaches won't say anything to the contrary.
"As much as you might want to look ahead, you have to focus on the next game," Connor said.
Perhaps now, more than ever, with Appalachian State's upset win against Michigan fresh in the minds of the country's players and coaches, it's easier to caution any team about overlooking any opponent.
Say "nobody wants to be this week's Michigan," and everyone knows what you mean. Still, avoiding a letdown is a constant challenge for many coaches in all sports.
"It's inevitable that you look forward to an upcoming opponent," said Penn State women's volleyball coach Russ Rose, who won a national title in 1999, and whose teams are consistently ranked among the top five in the nation.
"We try to guard against those upsets, but it's the level of maturity that players and teams have that prevents some of those things from happening," Rose said. "Is your team smart enough to realize you can lose a lot more by losing to an inferior team than you gain by beating the people that you're supposed to beat?"
To understand how a stunning upset win might occur, it's important to understand both sides involved in the potential result.
From the expected winner:
"The letdown is the other team's opportunity to beat one of the existing powerhouses in sports, no matter what the sport is," Rose said. "Even though you may have a certain game circled on your schedule, you are the team that's circled on a lot of other team's schedules."
From the projected underdog, who better to ask than Appalachian State coach Jerry Moore? Heading into its season-opening game at Michigan, Moore said the Mountaineers prepared the same way they have during every practice week in recent memory. The team worked an hour on Monday, about two-and-half hours on Tuesday, three hours on Wednesday and one hour on
Thursday before heading to Ann Arbor.
Moore didn't mention the opponent until 10 days before the game.
"We didn't really change anything. You wear it out if you go out for a month and say, 'we're going to beat Michigan,' " Moore said in a telephone interview earlier this week. "To be real truthful, I don't know what I would say about them. It would be like if we were going to Penn State. We'd feel exactly the same way."
So if the underdog isn't doing anything differently, what is the favorite supposed to do?
"What most teams do, they focus on the big picture, the schedule," sports psychologist Yukelson said. "Within the schedule there's one week at a time, one game at a time, and what do we need to do to transition from whatever we did to play well the second week of the season to the third week.
"If you keep your goals in mind and the goal is to get better, then when you go from all the hoopla surrounding Notre Dame to getting ready for Buffalo, it's just a practice week," he said. "What are you going to do to have quality practice and quality reps and learn from the things you did the first two weeks?"
Fortunately for many college athletes, they aren't allowed many opportunities to look ahead. They've got enough to do one day at a time. Weightlifting, practice, class, sleep, studying and boyfriend/girlfriend time all need to fit into 24 hours. Routines keep them focused.
"Most athletes on all our [teams] are in set schedules and routines," Yukelson said. "There's all these things that you go through, preparation with films and execution in practice so you look forward to it. That's one of the things that settles them in."
In an ideal situation, the players have no choice but to focus on the topic immediately in front of them.
"You don't really have an option as a player," Connor said. "You're focused on the tape you're watching every day and the team you're going against in practice. The coaches will keep your head on right."
And coaches always dangle a carrot of uncertainty in front of players, no matter the opponent.
In the week leading up to the Lions football opener against Florida International, Penn State coaches and players continuously reminded reporters that they didn't know what to expect from FIU. They didn't know what offensive or defensive schemes FIU would use because the Golden Panthers had a new coach, and the Lions didn't know much about him.
This week, it's Buffalo and its "high-powered offense," Connor said, which scored 42 points last week, but against a lowly Temple team. Still, if you ask players about Buffalo, there's no chance you'll get them talking about anything other than respect:
* Offensive tackle Gerald Cadogan: "We're focused on Buffalo right now. We're not underestimating any of our opponents this season."
* Wideout Derrick Williams: "Letdown with Buffalo? That's not even a question because we watch Buffalo and they have a great team. ... We're not looking forward to Michigan. We're not feeding off last week's game."
* Cornerback Justin King: "We're coming out ready to play like we do every week. Not looking past Buffalo. We just have to play our game."
That's what coaches hope to hear and hope to see on game days. If the team has practiced hard, remained focused through the week, success should translate to the field. If the team struggles or loses focus against an inferior opponent, the next challenge becomes responding to adversity by trusting the preparation.
"It's always about execution and playing your style of game," Yukelson said, "not playing down to a competitor or not having to press to try too hard. That's the way you deal with it. You create a focus. You have goals. You may recognize that maybe the team isn't as good as we played last week but we need to focus on the things that we can control. And that's execution, effort and intensity."
