So, listening to ‘The Herd’ this am I heard that Urban Meyer after beating AL with OR up next took the Buckeye Team’s front 7 to Weightwatchers to eat the right foods & get leaner & meaner because the Ducks were up next. They each lost 5 – 11 pounds. They “thought” they were leaner, meaner, faster & that they could match-up with the Ducks, especially in the 2nd half.
Did they, really? Doesn’t matter. They THOUGHT they were & that’s what counts.
For 25 years I got up at 5:00 AM to get ready for school & get the weightroom open so the team could come in and lift before school started. Even at one school got the cook to feed the team a special breakfast. I did this for two reasons: 1. To help those kids get bigger, faster, stronger. But more importantly 2. To build into their psyche that they were doing something that the opponents weren’t. I did it to give us an edge. And it did. And we did it year round. The only ‘vacation’ we took was over Christmas & New Years. The rest of the time we were in the weightroom working out. The perception became [in 4 different schools] if you were in town, you needed to be in the weightroom. If you weren’t, your spot on the team would go to someone who was and you wound up on the bench. Every school day. Every vacation day. Every snow day. You needed to be in the weightroom.

Same ‘Perception’ for the Buckeyes. The Bucks were not in class during that time either so they could spend more time at the facility that the Ducks. The Buckeyes were going to weight watchers, making an unheard of sacrifice to get better prepared. The Ducks weren’t. As we found out, some of them were smoking dope getting ready for the game. That’s a cheap shot but you get the picture: Oregon says it doesn’t matter that they lost their most productive receiver because the ‘system’ is greater than the players in it. OSU gains the perception that they can not only match up to the Duck system, they can surmount it. They could even turn the ball over 4 times & still win by 22 points. That’s conviction.