This is from back on 10/1. I think it's a good effort, with some interesting points. It may have gotten lost in all the discussion. The author is Monkeyluv.
Quote:
Regarding the psychology of the game, I have decided to begin posting Sport Psych 101 topics that will inform the Beaver faithful about the current research which pertains to our State of the Union.
Today’s lesson is: CONFIDENCE
Dr. Albert Bandura (Stanford) had done extensive research regarding how individuals build confidence pertaining to their specific sport and set of skills. (Self-efficacy). These will be listed in descending order from most to least beneficial:
1) Mastery Experience – Learning by doing.
2) Vicarious Learning – Seeing others succeed.
3) Modeling – Imitating those who inspire you.
4) Social Persuasion – Proper encouragement.
Riley is fantastic at the 1st and good at the 4th. I think he lacks in the middle. This is why our teams start out slowly. If you have no experience to draw from, and you don’t implement other forms of confidence enhancement, how can you be expected to succeed immediately?
This is why it is common practice to schedule “patsies” to evenly balance these forms of learning. The best practice is to always learn from an equal level of competition for the greatest gains. Because most big boys may not know who their “new” teams are at the beginning of the season, they avoid the the loss and rarely experience the Appalachian St. upset. Unfortunately the Beavs have taken the difficult road and now risk having absolutely NO self-confidence or efficacy with our mandated tasks.
(After consistent losses and ranking at the bottom of the FBS, how can any players build confidence by seeing others around them succeed [#2]; as well as I have been told that our “Big Hits” motivational videos are shown to the players in the locker room just before kickoff [#3]. That type of poorly executed modeling and imprinting leads to #17 missing open tackles on the QB).
So where I agree with you Angry that each game is independent from the next, right now I see ASU as being much more confident in their ability to stay fat and satiated if someone tries to steal their sack of food on the road.
My prediction is that with a loss to ASU, our team’s confidence will be so lackluster that we run the risk of missing a bowl game all together.
