Colorado State coach Jim McElwain, right, was not pleased with the Rams’ effort against Air Force. (The Denver Post, Andy Cross)
FORT COLLINS – Jim McElwain’s first year as head coach at Colorado State has, from day one, required him to be part motivator, but even he didn’t anticipate having to dig this deep into his inner Anthony Robbins at this point of the season.
His team has an identity crisis.
The players know they’re good. Wait. At least they think they are. Hold on. They’ve been told they are, and desperately want to believe it.
Maybe all three are true, but somewhere between the daily affirmation sessions during the week and putting on the pads to prove it on Saturdays, there’s been a serious disconnect.
So McElwain, with seemingly an endless flow of philosophy, optimism and edge-of-your-seat story-telling, is searching even more to get the best out of a team he knows shouldn’t sit at 1-4 going into the halfway point of the season.
“You sit and reflect,” he said. “We’ve made some positive strides in some young men’s lives. I’ve seen how they have walked around and felt better about themselves. Not from a win-loss record, but how they are approaching life every day.
“Now, sometimes I wonder when we get between the hedges have I created a bunch of choir boys? Are we playing with the intensity that crazed dogs play with on a Saturday in that three-hour span? I’m not sure we are.”
McElwain has received praise from all directions on email, via text, phone call and in person about just how much more put-together the football team is. Please and thank you are mandatory phrases out of players’ mouths as are ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am.’ Suits are required on game days. A higher standard of decorum is stressed on road trips. The locker room must be a certain kind of clean or risk facing McElwain’s wrath. There’s no trash talk on the football field. There’s an acute attention to academics off of it.
These players? They’re really nice guys.
And maybe, just maybe, that’s a problem.
“I’m not sure we’re cutting it loose (during games),” McElwain said. “So when you look back and reflect on that, we need to find that.”
In a perfect world, McElwain wants the good stuff they’ve carved out so far to stay while, at the same time, molding more motivated gladiators on Saturdays. But this is a much more difficult fix than just correcting mistakes in the passing game or finding ways to create a better pass rush.
This reaches into each player and asks: What are you willing to give? And are you willing to give it?
“I think you appeal to the inner soul of each person,” McElwain said. “And once it’s realized that ‘Am I sacrificing?’ then all of a sudden the masses come together. We did that going into our first game. We let the momentum get away from us a little bit, which when you’re used to a losing culture, some of those things creep back. But when you understand the process and what got you there, that’s when it clicks.”
McElwain did take time to underscore “We have gotten better, believe it or not.”
But the coach fresh from Tuscaloosa who is more used to his teams being the bullies rather than the bullied, was most deeply stung by the regression of effort he witnessed at Air Force in what he called, on the part of some of the athletes, a passionless performance. “They imposed their will on us, and that hurts. That hurts,” he said. “When somebody affects you in that manner, as a competitor, that should hurt.”
Yet through this, the most adverse time in recent years for him, he says he’s always understood one thing: “I knew it was going to be difficult. But you know what? If it was easy I wouldn’t be here.”
Follow Chris Dempsey on Twitter @dempseypost or email him at cdempsey@denverpost.com
