CHAPEL HILL – Sometimes, the best work coaches do isn’t scheming for an opponent, adjusting in games or teaching skills development. When troubled times hit, coaches need to play the role of psychoanalyst of sorts.
With respect to North Carolina’s struggling football team, it’s not as if Larry Fedora and his staff are waiting for Sigmund Feud to walk through that door and redirect the collective thoughts of the Tar Heels.
This is football, after all, and while the fan base may need some couch time, the 1-6 Heels themselves aren’t in a state of despair or a twirling mess yet, though frustration has fully settled in.
“Yeah, sure, plenty of frustration,” Fedora said Monday at his weekly press conference, when asked if four consecutive competitive losses had reached a point of frustration
Fedora wouldn’t say its visible in the players but it’s something they do discuss.
“We talk about how close we are and the difference in winning and losing and what we need to do,” the seventh-year UNC coach said. “I think everybody’s frustrated, nobody’s happy with what’s going on.”
UNC’s mark, however, extending back to the beginning of last season is 4-15, and going back to the Duke game Nov. 10, 2016, Carolina is 5-18 with just two wins over Power 5 opponents.
The Tar Heels seemingly find new ways to lose each week, whether in lopsided defeats like at East Carolina and Miami or last-minute heartbreaks versus Virginia Tech and Syracuse in a recent back-to-back stretch. It’s foolish to think this doesn’t weigh on a team’s mind and psyche.
The frustration Fedora has acknowledged can sometimes turn into despair for teams that really spiral in the direction the Tar Heels appear firmly headed, and that’s what UNC’s staff must now guard against.
“It can if you let it,” Fedora said Monday during his weekly press conference. “First of all, you’ve got guys on this team that really care and they want to be successful and they’re doing the things that we ask. They have to keep trusting and believing in each other and our leaders are doing a really good job of that.
“We’ve got guys stepping up every single day talking to the team about what needs to happen. And it’s not a berating type of leadership, it’s a positive leadership. They all realize how close they are.”
But, Fedora notes, it’s ultimately up to him in setting the tone for the team. So, in times like this, does the staff change things up to break the monotony, maybe shake the tree some from pre-practice routines to literally anything?
“Everything is in play when we’re talking about that,” Fedora replied. “And when you’re sitting in the situation we’re in and we’ve been so close so many weeks and we haven’t been able to get over the hump, you’re trying to leave no stone unturned when you’re looking for changes that can be made that can help us win.”
Of course, winning a game is the tonic that would fix this problem, but that can’t happen without the team possessing a positive frame of mind and being loose enough to not psychologically defeat itself.
That’s on the staff, Freudian training or not.
