Believe: A Scandurro Story

BY TIM SCANDURRO

"Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right."—Henry Ford

“We are who we believe we are.”—C.S. Lewis

Friday, November 15, 6:45 PM: Every eyeball in the room is focused on Tulane Strength and Conditioning Coach Rusty Whitt, who is standing in front of a projection screen at the BWI Airport Marriott Hotel in Maryland, the football team seated in rows before him.  Whitt, a decorated combat veteran of an elite U.S. Army Special Forces unit, knows a thing or two about courage, toughness, and discipline.  He also knows a thing or two about the type of opponent we'll be facing the following day, having served in a similar capacity at the United States Military Academy in West Point.  

I'm expecting him to tell the team about how tough and relentless we should expect Navy to be.   We've all heard it our whole lives, and I've frequently said it myself.  "They may not have the athletes others have, but you'll never out-work them, out-tough them or out-discipline them, and they will never quit."

I'm wrong about Coach Whitt's message, it turns out.  Completely wrong.  The message instead is that all the vaunted qualities of the Academy players, the mystique that they have in the eyes of the public and the media and many opponents, can't hold a candle to the same qualities of the young men in the room with him tonight.  In a series of PowerPoint slides and direct interactions with players, he drives the point home.  We aren't just better athletes.    We train harder, we practice harder, and our daily schedules are harder.  We are more prepared than they are, we are more disciplined than they are, and we are closer and more tight-knit than they are.  We are tougher and more physical than they are.  Their spirit and grit may work against lesser opponents, but as Coach Sumrall will say later in the same room, with feeling, "they ain't played us yet."   The Midshipmen are just college kids who aren’t ready for what they’re about to face.  If we keep relentlessly striking them play after play, we will break them.

At the end of Coach Whitt's talk, the slide on the screen features words like Toughness, Discipline, and Brotherhood.  In his hand is a combat knife.  Pointing at each word, he asks the team whether Navy has a patent on that particular quality.  In unison, the team hollers back at him "NOOOO!"  As they do, he slashes the knife through the word on the screen.  By the time he's done the screen is in tatters, the stand it's mounted on is in pieces, and the team is on its feet yelling.  

 It dawns on me that our group is sick and tired of reading and hearing about how superior Navy's work ethic and spirit supposedly are, and they are itching to show Navy, its Senior Day stadium-record crowd, and the entire college football world what OURS looks like.  We haven't lost a conference road game in three years.  We are the dominant apex predators of this league.  And yet our coaches have successfully managed to put a very large chip on the shoulders of every one of our players.

 My only concern is how this team is going to be able to wait another 16 hours to hit Navy in the mouth.  

Saturday, November 16, 8:55 AM:  We're back in the same room, and now it's Coach Sumrall's turn.  He doesn't have a combat knife in his hand, but he has a baseball bat.  This game, he says, is a "bat game."  We need to lay the wood to Navy, and keep on swinging, play after play.  He takes time to tell the team again, with genuine emotion, that the last time we were on this field in Annapolis was in the Military Bowl.  Our head coach had left, some players had followed him or gone other places, and the team's immediate future was uncertain.  He thanks the loyal players who had other options but chose to stay, because this meaningful game today wouldn't be happening without their commitment to their university, their adopted city, their teammates and their new coaches.  He marvels at how we have combined 46 returning players and 34 new ones, plus integrating returning coaches and new coaches, and built something so special in so short a time. “I’m in awe of the men in this room and what you’ve been able to do,” he says.

Then the assistant coaches start calling on individual players in their position groups to stand up in front of the entire team.  Once they are on their feet, their coach describes a particular formation or play call or situation, and asks them "what is your assignment, what are you going to do?"  This makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up, because I remember that "Socratic method" classroom experience from law school and how many times students got caught unprepared or nervous and were embarrassed in front of the class.

Not these kids.  One after the other, they take turns standing up when their names are called.  Every one of them listens intently to their coaches and then describes exactly what their assignment is. Most of the offensive skill players finish their answers in the end zone; most of the defensive players finish their answers in the Navy quarterback's face.  It is a convincing public demonstration of commitment to preparation and to the team, and you can feel the confidence building in the room with each answer.  The last two to get called on are former Holy Cross High School teammates Josh Remetich and Tyler Grubbs, who use Coach Sumrall's baseball bat and the chairs they were sitting in to demonstrate visually what they want to see the team do to Navy.

Saturday, 9:10 AM:  The buses depart for the stadium, with a police escort.  We have to travel in the opposing lanes of traffic, because game traffic is already backed up for over a mile almost three hours before kickoff.  There are people tailgating everywhere alongside the road in the area of the stadium.  Nobody throws stuff at the buses or gives us any middle fingers (this is Annapolis, not Baton Rouge).  But they do stare.  They stare because they know who is on the buses.   They are expecting a record crowd today because of who is on the buses.  

Saturday, 11:55 AM:   The Midshipmen have entered the stadium in their parade formations and have taken their seats.  In our locker room, the coordinators have written their final points of emphasis on their whiteboards.  Some players are sitting with their eyes closed, visualizing what's to come.  On the defensive side of the room, Patrick Jenkins and then Tyler Grubbs are loudly exhorting their teammates. They can be heard clearly even over the sound of the Navy jet flyover.   “Good teams are coach-led, but great teams are player-led,” as Coach likes to say.  Everyone understands what's at stake; no one, not a single player or coach, has tried to call this 'just another game' or 'just a nameless faceless opponent.'  The season is on the line and everyone welcomes and embraces the urgency.

With the game officials just outside the locker room trying to get the team moving, Coach Sumrall doesn't have a lot of time.  He reminds the team of the keys to victory:  run the ball and stop the run.  Take care of the football because Navy will try and tackle it and punch it out.  Take the ball away from them.  Limit explosive plays.  Be the more aggressive, more disciplined team.  Don't look at the scoreboard but play every single play with everything you've got.

It's time.

The Game:   Over the course of the next three hours, everything the coaches preached and the players prepared for comes to fruition.

“We’re tougher and more physical than they are.  Bring the wood.”  Navy quarterback Blake Horvath has come into this game with plenty of accolades.  He can run and throw, and he’s adept at operating Navy’s unique offense.  He ran for well over 100 yards against Notre Dame and averaged almost ten yards a carry.  The week before this game today, he was named one of the 16 semifinalists for the Davey O’Brien award given annually to the nation’s top quarterback.  

On Navy’s third series in the first quarter, he seems to be finding room.  He takes off around right end for 15 yards, and only a diving shoestring tackle by Slim Despanie prevents a much longer gain.  A couple of plays later he takes off through a big hole on the same side for another 10 yards into Tulane territory before he goes down.  But when he goes down this time, Navy’s conference title hopes go down with him.  Because this wasn’t a shoestring tackle.  This was a vintage full-body Tyler Grubbs tackle.  Football coaches like to say that when a guy like Grubbs hits you, you stay hit.

Horvath got to his knees but couldn’t move any farther because his ribs and back wouldn’t let him.  He left the game for the remainder of the half.  He returned valiantly in the second half to the loud roars of the Brigade of Midshipmen, but he was pole-axed by Matthew Fobbs-White on the first series and never returned.  

Over the course of the 60-minute game, play is stopped more than a half dozen times so that Navy’s medical staff can attend to an assortment of other injured players who can’t get up.  It stops only once for a Tulane injury when Dontae Fleming tweaks his knee trying to go up for an underthrown deep ball. He returns to action later.

“Take care of the football.”  Over the course of 60 minutes, we do not turn the ball over and we never even put it on the ground.  Our defense forces two Navy turnovers.

“We’re more disciplined than they are.”  In addition to the turnovers, during the game Navy is penalized more often and for more yards than we are.  Never thought I’d see the day.

“Don’t look at the scoreboard.”  In the tunnel at halftime up 14-0, several Tulane players can be heard shouting “Zero-Zero!”  By the end of the game, the scoreboard will read 35-Zero.

“Run the ball and stop the run.”  Tulane rushes for over twice the yardage Navy does, and holds the Middies to season lows in rushing yards and yards per attempt.  We were the more physical and more aggressive team.  We leaned on them.  We broke them. 

“Limit the explosive plays.”  Navy totals 113 yards of offense for the entire game.  Its quarterbacks complete 3 of 11 passes for a total of just 13 yards and an interception.  The explosive plays weren’t just limited.  They were nonexistent.  

“Our brotherhood is stronger than theirs.”  In the jubilant post-game locker room, the players celebrate for and with each other.  They are in the conference championship game for the third straight year.  When Coach Sumrall awards the first game ball to Coach Gasparato for his work leading the defense—which has allowed a leather helmet era-like  total of nine points in the last three games—the players nearly blow the roof off the locker room.

“We’re more prepared than they are.”  After the game linebacker Sam Howard tells the press that walk-on quarterback Dagan Bruno and the rest of the scout team offense had them fully prepared, and that they played harder and better during practice than the opponent did in the game.

We said we would.  We believed we would.  So we did.

What’s next.  Most of us are probably focused on three things:  the Memphis game on Thanksgiving night, the conference title game which may very well be in New Orleans for the third year in a row, and Boise State.  But we need to have something else front of mind.

 Our players have been noticed by other teams with a lot of money to throw around.  If you think they aren’t already tampering and floating money to players and their families, get off the turnip truck.  They are.  But the players understand that we have something special here, and the bet is that they would stay to be a part of it even at a hometown discount.  Coach Sumrall and his staff are worth something beyond money to these kids.

But we in the Tulane community, administration and fans, have to give them a fighting chance.  “That collective you guys have, it’s helping put a lot of good football players out there on that field,” Coach Whitt told me after the game.

We are, each one of us, ambassadors for this program.  Lead by example and get your friends who also love Tulane involved.   The transfer portal opens in a few short weeks, and we have a roster to retain and strengthen.  It’s go time for us, same as it was for the players at 12 noon EST Saturday when they emerged from their locker room.  The question is, do we believe as much as they did when they ran out of that tunnel, and are we as committed as they were?  Because we didn’t get here by accident, and we won’t stay here by accident.  We got here and we will stay here only by commitment.  

Press Conference, Saturday, 3:30 PM EST:  “Everybody around Tulane has decided we want to be good at football, and we can be as good as we want to be. We can go as far as we want to go on this.”—Jon Sumrall

So how good do we want to be, and how far do we want to go?