North Carolina State University Athletics
Everette Sands Diary: Rivalry Week
11/4/2011 12:00:00 AM | Football
Nov. 4, 2011
Florida State's a great team, but the problem is we didn't go out and play our best game. It's disappointing to have to reflect on a situation where we could plainly see that we didn't have our best effort. As a staff, we hope that moving forward it serves as a wake up call to our guys to know that they can't just show up and play. Everybody in the ACC is talented, and Florida State's right at the top. We played with them the last several years, and could have this year if we would have continued to execute.
We have our big rival coming into town this week, so it should be easy for our guys to get up and be ready to deliver a solid effort. One of my old coaches used to tell us that he wanted us to have enthusiasm rather than emotion, and that's been something I've used this week preparing. We used to say that the last four letters of enthusiasm stood for "I am sold, myself", meaning you're ready to completely buy in and give your best. If you're running on emotion, and you get hit one time, that emotions going to be knocked out of you. We're looking for more enthusiasm this week.
With four games left, I feel like we're in a good position to finish strong. Our open date helped us, being right in the middle of the year, and I haven't seen any fatigue out of our guys. Of course, we have some players with nicks here or there, but if we didn't have those then we haven't been playing hard enough. Right now, we know that we have a great opportunity in November to end up with a great season.
My family went down to Charleston while we were on the road. My oldest son won a couple of cakes at the carnival's cake walk, and was even nice enough to leave one with my parents for their 43rd anniversary. My youngest son went as a police officer for Halloween after we had to talk him out of being a football player for the third year in a row. By the time I got home, they had gotten out of their costumes and already taken baths so I didn't get to see the other costumes, but I'm looking forward to seeing the pictures.
