Alabama football mindset being helped by golfing approach
Is it possible that the Alabama Crimson Tide, one of the most powerful football programs ever created, is getting tips from golf? Believe it!
Mental toughness is everything. No matter the profession, no matter what anyone chooses to do, the mind has to be focused in order to accomplish any goal. One does not notice it during ‘auto-pilot’ tasks because the brain has been wired through repetition to complete it.
The same is true in football.
Michael Casagrande of AL.com covered recent comments by JK Scott, the Alabama football punter. When commenting about the shanked punt in the opening game against Florida State, Scott said, “The biggest thing I’ve focused on and what I got away from on that one has been to take conservative angles but be aggressive with my swing.”
Scott contributes his new mindset, out of all people, to a famous golfer: “My friend met Jordan Spieth and asked him for some advice playing golf. He said to take conservative angles but aggressive strokes. That’s been my goal and what I did was take an aggressive angle, which I shouldn’t have.”
The 6-foot-6 native of Denver, Colorado has kicked 198 punts for Alabama which have averaged 45 yards per attempt. His 70-yard punt in the Sugar Bowl a few years ago aside, Scott quests for consistency in his achievement.
Alabama football head coach Nick Saban quests for that same consistency in his own achievements and demands it from his players.
In 2016, Kyle Porter of CBS Sports reported Saban comparing golf to football. Saban said:
"“The struggle is all mental. It’s like every time I hit a shot and I have to chip, my thought is, ‘[Expletive], I have to chip.’ It’s a mindset that you are telling yourself that you’re gonna fail, rather than just focusing on what you have to do to succeed and even though you may not do it well, eventually you will.”"
Sound familiar? Isn’t that what Saban’s been preaching to his players for years?
Saban said, “Golf is a metaphor of life […] I hit a great drive, but it doesn’t matter. It’s only the next shot that matters.”
The next shot. The next play. Just do the job the right way at the right time.
Any real golfer would stake their favorite clubs on the fact that any kind of distraction or change in behaviour can throw off the swing and, therefore, an entire round of golf. In football, one player’s miscommunication, distraction, or misread of a situation can destroy the team’s strategy and, therefore, the game itself.
However, if every player wipes their minds from the previous mistake (or success) and starts again, every single shot or play has the chance to be a touchdown or a birdie.
Yet, it’s never that simple, which is why so many people love golf and football. Every play and every shot has its own history. They are both games for the mind and the body. Saban said, “You could hit [the ball] in the water, which means now you have to overcome adversity. You put yourself in a hole and it’s, ‘Can I get up and down and still make bogey?’ But that’s how life is. Sometimes you don’t control it. You’ve got to keep harping on this stuff all the time.”
So, how does this mindset comparison help Alabama football?
Take the Fresno State game and compare it to the Florida State game. Yes, Alabama won both games, but they did it in completely different fashion. Against FSU, the Crimson Tide offense was stymied repeatedly. It took a blocked punt and a defensive mauling of the FSU offense to keep Alabama afloat. Then, against Fresno State, Alabama’s offense flourished, scoring almost at will while the defense had trouble getting off the field. Only through big plays and Fresno State mistakes did the Bulldogs stay relatively off of the scoreboard.
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Every teeoff, every lie on the fairway or in the rough, every gust of wind, every single shot in golf is its own world. It has variables that are never quite the same. Football is also a living entity all its own. By using that mindset, the Alabama players can overcome any adversity at any time. So can all of us. If we but choose to think so.