CanesCounty – Tyrique Stevenson Blog: Guys are more locked in this week

Presented by the fan community of CaneSport.com and Gonzalez Cartwright    

CB Tyrique Stevenson will have a weekly blog all season at CaneSport.com. In this edition, Stevenson talks about the upcoming UNC game and more:

We came into this season with great aspirations, came in thinking we had a chance to go pretty much undefeated this year.

A lot of adversity has hit us and it has kind of shocked the whole team and the whole staff.

(The chippiness in practice last week), that just comes with football, it brings out a different attitude in you.

When you’re winning you have no problems and everybody is A-okay. But once you start losing, a lot of things start to show. I felt with some of these guys and us losing, there was a lot of frustration and anger is in the air with us losing.

That built up and it flowed out a little bit. But we got everything straightened out, are all back on the same board. A little bit of emotion and anger just got out of the way.

That was good, because it shows everybody cares. We aren’t just letting the team ride the way we are. It shows everybody is frustrated with what is going on and everybody is down to put in the extra work to change it.

We had a team meeting. Everybody spoke their piece and everybody gave their ideas of how they felt about the team, how they felt about what we needed to do. We also gave our opinions on how we felt about each other’s play and stuff like that which I felt created a better team atmosphere because now everybody understands what we think of each other, what we think of the team.

I always speak my piece, but I didn’t get up in front of the team to speak because I felt like me coming into this, I came into a brotherhood and my job is to just fall in line and be that older guy they need to talk to sometimes. The majority the players who spoke have been here three or four years watching this program do what it does.

I felt it was better just to listen because these guys have put in work with each other for two or three years plus. I just came in and showed them that once I got in, I work. But these guys have been with each other two or three years, so it’s a bond there that I can’t just come in and walk into. It’s a family vibe they still give me, though.

I felt that meeting needed to happen so guys understand what each other think, that nobody is here to just let this happen and is just here for the ride.

I felt good afterward, hearing them mature up and voice their opinion.

That shows the maturity in the team.

THE BYE WEEK WORK

The bye week came at a perfect time for us. We use this time to evaluate ourselves, everybody from the head coach on down to the specialists. We use this week to reevaluate ourselves, have everybody come up and come together, make sure we are all on the same page, all reestablish ourselves as a team. We just use this week to get better.

We’re going back to the basics, what made us comfortable going into the season, made us have a lot of confidence. We practiced longer, practiced a little harder, went back to the basic drills of tackling, understanding gaps and understanding where your help is on the defense and leveraging the ball and things like that.

In the middle of the season, it’s like training camp again, that’s what it really was. It went great. Everybody came in, nobody complained, we came in and worked, everybody bought into the program. We believe what coach Diaz is saying and we are behind what he says.

It wasn’t new for me. At Georgia, coach Kirby Smart is big on making sure you stay basic and try to do it right. Even when you’re frustrated and fatigued, go back to your day 1 training. We’d always work on a lot of stuff during the season like we did this past week. It helps bring out the basics of what you really do.

That’s important because as a player, you might make a good couple of plays here and there, might get comfortable, lackadaisical, and it’s easy for you to lose focus because there’s so many other things going on out there to grab your focus as far as the fans, as far as the coaches, as far as the other team. Some might be trying to get you out of your game. Once you lose your focus, you’re always going to lose the battle.

On a Saturday, it’s completely different out there on the field. There’s a lot that goes into it that people don’t understand. For us we have to block out the outside noise, social media. You have to block out maybe how your teammates prepare. You may not prepare the same way. And then it’s just the crowd noise, the fans, the TV, the cameras and everything out there for somebody else’s benefit. You have to play with that and shut it out and focus on what you have to do.

ANY TEAM CAN WIN ANY GIVEN WEEK

I watched some football games this weekend, the Texas A&M-Bama game, the Georgia-Auburn game and I watched the Temple vs. Cincinnati game. I was just telling my little cousin, `You never know with college football.’ You might have an 0-4 team go out and beat the No. 3 team in the nation, you never know. You just prepare week by week, keep chopping wood and eventually for a team it clicks.

My former teammates at Georgia, I talk to them weekly, tell them I’m proud of them. It’s something they’ve been working for (to be No. 1). Just at some point, once everybody is mature, on the same page, it clicks for a team. I’m very happy for them, I told them they should win it all and they know they should. They know it should be nothing less than that.

Texas A&M vs. Bama, that was a very exciting game. Texas A&M wasn’t worried about the losses, what people were saying about them. They just went out there and worked. It’s the same thing with us, losses are irrelevant because the ACC is still wide open. If we buckle down and be who we are and who we know we can be, it’ll be a great turnaround for this team.

NORTH CAROLINA’S NEXT UP

I feel guys are more locked in this week. One thing coach Diaz is preaching is `Our destiny is in our hands.’ However the way we want this year to turn out is really on us. I feel the guys are more locked in with this game with the loss we took last year to them. We had extra meetings, guys are more focused.

I wasn’t here for that North Carolina game last year, but I feel it’s still a sting for the team. Losing like that hurts more than a regular loss. Losing the way they did, I can see it in the coaches and players. They are still hurt by it. They are ready to go out and play now. It’s another game and I know they are ready to play.

Coming in, we know Sam Howell has a great arm. We know he’s an RPO and a deep shot quarterback. We feel coming into this week, just need to keep our shoes in front of us, take away his first look, you know, and we’ll have a great game against him.

Every game I’m really amped up because regardless if they throw it 50 times or 10, you’ll get your chance. This game we are coming in against a quarterback that can throw it. It adds a little more excitement to it, more push you put on yourself during the week to get ready for games like this.

Every game is the same for us, because once you start treating one game bigger than the other one then priorities shift and mental focus shifts. Coming into this game, we’re going to treat it the same, but for the guys that played it last year, it does mean a little more to them. That can make you want to work harder, and make you want to actually go out there and do things right so you don’t get put in that same predicament as last year.

I feel like coming into this game, we had an extra week to prepare, have watched them for two weeks so we really should know what they are going to do. Coming into this game, I feel like the guys who have the chip on their shoulder from losing to them last year will turn that to good and play one of the best games we have played so far.