Nunzio addresses The Nation

Crusader Nation,

As we finish up our preparation for our first game of the year, here are some reflections on our season to date:

We began the summer with very high expectations. We knew that we had a talented group with plenty of game experience, but some things had to change for us to take the next step and get back to being a championship program. We began by setting simple, but lofty goals. The first is to "Get better everyday" and the second is to become the #1 football program in New Jersey.

In order to reach those goals we needed to change the culture of our football program. We needed a foundation that we could build our program on. We all know there are many factors that go into building a championship program, but we felt as coaches that we could not focus on all the available factors, so we chose three. These factors were issues we felt we needed to concentrate on the most in order to accomplish our goals. The three we chose were Toughness, Compete, and Accountability. We attempted to apply each of these factors to everything we did, everyday. While the real fruit of our labor will play out over the next thirteen weeks, we feel that we made tremendous progress in relation to these core elements of our program.

1. Toughness - As coaches we feel that toughness is the most fundamental element to our culture. We needed to become physically and mentally tougher everyday in order to prepare for our upcoming season. Toughness was a factor in every weight training session, conditioning session, and practice. Our goal is to make every practice harder than the toughest games so our players are prepared on game day. Our coaches are extremely demanding so our players learn to be mentally tough enough to handle the adversity that comes in a game. They are accustomed to adverse situations and are mentally tough enough to handle them.

We make sure to hit live everyday in order to be accustomed to live contact on game days. We organized three high energy, live inter-squad scrimmages. They were played on hot days with game conditions. This forced our players to push through the heat. They also were able experience the carnival atmosphere that can exist on game day. This environment forces them to learn to be tough enough to play through mistakes, rather than hang their head after a bad play. In addition to dealing with adversity they are forced to learn how to handle prosperity. They cannot be satisfied with a good play, rather they need to continue to push themselves to excel.

As coaches we believe that we have a conditioned harder than any team in New Jersey. We know that there are some great teams out there, and they are all working hard. We felt that the best way to become tougher is to demand more than anyone else. We needed to challenge our players in new ways everyday. Our conditioning is not simply running, it is mental toughness training. We force our players to demand more of themselves everyday, in every way. They must push each other and battle through whatever adversity they face. When one player fails they all fail, so they learn to work together without pointing fingers, but still challenging each other to demand more. We felt that in every competition we took part in this summer we were in tremendous physical condition. That conditioning allows our players to be mentally tougher and gives our team the ability to compete harder, for a longer period of time.

2. Compete - We tell our players that competing is maximizing your ability at all times. We want to win, but more importantly we want to maximize our performance in every thing we do. We also tell our players it is about the process not the result. In other words we do not care about the score or the result, we care about whether or not we did it right. We expect to compete to the best of our ability in every rep, drill, team period, scrimmage, game, etc ... We feel that if we compete and maximize our potential the wins and losses take care of themselves. We will never accept a mediocre effort simply because it results in a win. That is not a recipe for long term success. We will never reach our goal of being the most dominant football program in New Jersey if we accept anything less than our best. The inverse is obviously true as well -- if we were to lose and still give a maximum effort type performance, we would not be happy, but we accept it and move on. We are always going to focus on our willingness to compete rather than results. Results will come.

We have numerous examples of this from our summer training. The most glaring and impressive may be Tanner McEvoy. Tanner is our quarterback and probably our most gifted athlete. Despite his high ability level he made a conscious decision to raise his level in our demanding summer conditioning program. He was never content to simply make his times. Instead he competed everyday to maximize his effort and challenge his teammates to raise their effort to match his. Many players accepted that challenge and began to hold themselves to higher standards. On the first day the times we set as coaches seemed impossible to reach, within weeks we had to create entirely new times because our players learned to compete. They began to crush what previously seemed impossible.

Other examples would be Nick La Testa and Taylor Bishop working tirelessly to overcome off-season injuries. They were examples of young men that would maximize their effort everyday, because they couldn't stand the idea of their teammates practicing without them. They were examples of how to handle adversity and overcome it. Now we look forward to tremendous seasons from our senior leaders.

Another example would be Jagger Brady, 138-pound cornerback that fearlessly throws his body around. He never allows is size to be an excuse, rather he raises his competition level to prepare himself to be the best player he can be everyday. Those and many other examples tell us that we have learned how to compete and push ourselves to be the best we can be.

3. Accountability - Our players constantly hear the mantra "Do your job". We needed to stress the importance of taking responsibility for our actions. We demand every player and every coach to take responsibility for their role on every play. That means that we look at ourselves first when something goes wrong. We have eliminated excuses. We stress that we care about those people around us so we will not let them down. We understand that in order to be leaders we need to do our job first, then hold others to those same high expectations. That means showing up everyday prepared to compete.

Two great examples of this are seniors Zach Sparber and Pat DiMase. Neither player missed a practice all summer. They compete at a high level and diligently work to get better everyday. They are a great example to the rest of our young players that are learning to adapt to our culture.

We demand accountability and film study is a great teaching tool. We watch practice film everyday. We see the mistakes we make and great players want to fix those mistakes. We believe that we have those guys. Our Inside Linebackers are great examples of this. Karl Bostick, Spencer Kulcsar, and Shane Drummond watch the tape and take the corrections to the field. They are one of our most improved units.

Our Wide Receivers are another example. They compete everyday to make sure they never miss an assignment. Cameron Dickerson, Chucky Wingate, John Tsimis, and Austin Devine are constantly being evaluated and they get better everyday because they demand excellence from themselves and each other.

All in all, the summer has been a tremendous success. We have seen these three factors have an invaluable impact on our team and the development of our culture. We believe we have the making of a championship team, but the next thirteen weeks will tell us where we stand. The implementation of this culture has been both challenging and fun. It is great to see our players become better players and better people because they have taken on the challenge of becoming both physically and mentally tougher, competing to maximize their ability, and holding themselves and their teammates accountable for their actions.

Here's to a fun, exciting, and successful 2010 football season. We look forward to your passionate support.

- Nunz