Intensity level high as UNI preps for NDSU

CEDAR FALLS - It's rare to have an encounter with Northern Iowa football coach Mark Farley that isn't intense.

He carries his passion and intensity for the game in everything, and that's most certainly true when it comes to game preparation. Farley expects a lot out of his Panthers every day and every week, but combine coming off a loss with going to four-time defending national champion North Dakota State on Saturday, and it all goes up a notch.

'There's no question your fuse is a little bit shorter on some things because you want to get it right. You get frustrated that it's not going as quickly as you want,” Farley said. 'But then you've got to catch yourself, too, that it's Monday, it's Tuesday, it's Wednesday. This game ain't until Saturday, and the players are going to go back to study table or class. We're looking at it all day, they're looking at it for three or four hours per day.

'What I try to do is keep consistency from every game you play to every practice you do, there's got to be a rhythm. To be efficient at practice, you must be consistent and the players must know where they're going.”

UNI (2-2, 0-1) practiced for nearly three hours on Wednesday in the UNI-Dome, and did so with the artificial crowd noise blaring through the speakers to a volume where the only thing that could be heard on the field was a whistle or the air horn that signifies a change in drills.

Farley said the volume level has gone up progressively each day, pushing both the players and coaches into being as efficient and effective as possible in their communication.

The players respond well to using the crowd noise, and Farley has definitely seen that this week.

'What I've found is when you put the crowd noise on, you get better focus because now they're forced into communicating and forced into trying to find out what's going on without a coach hollering at him,” Farley said. 'Quite frankly, we get better practices with the sound on because the focus is more intense.

'What we wanted to do this week was, we turned it on, but we've still got to coach, so we had to be able to voice over it. Then as the week progresses, just like you turn the (noise) up, so does the intensity rise. Each day we should be a little bit better. The intensity rises, just as the sound will, and I think it's all one big puzzle you try to put together for Saturday.”

The Panthers have never had a problem self-motivating, but there's obviously some added incentive this week. Two seasons ago, UNI had a very real chance to beat the Bison in the FargoDome, and it slipped away - as well as injured some key players.

Everything in practice so far this week has reflected the desire to correct that outcome this time. Coaches - and Farley is certainly no exception - love to beat the 'no game is different from any other” drum, but Farley acknowledged everyone knows this is, in fact, different. He said, ‘and why wouldn't it be? I think that's human nature that you're looking at every week we're playing right now, it's a top 10 team.”

That sentiment is certainly shared by the players.

'Farley was pretty intense Monday and yesterday. He expects a lot out of us,” said offensive lineman Jacob Rathmacher. 'We didn't play up to our expectations (against Illinois State), so he got on us a little bit to get us going. Seniors and some of the leaders stepped up and we got it going pretty quick.

'It's NDSU. We haven't won up there in a while and they're reigning champs, so yeah, it's intense.”

When asked if the Panthers are motivated more by wins or losses, the responses from coaches and players were varied, though the consensus was the latter. Linebacker Brett McMakin said, 'more by losses, for sure. We want to win.”

But Farley has seen them work with intensity in both situations - though obviously with a little different attitude in the varying situations. As always, though, if UNI is able to pull off the upset at NDSU, how intense they are from the beginning to end of practice isn't all that matters.

'I really don't want to get in a position where I say ‘Hey we had a great day of practice today because we've got a big week coming up,'” Farley said. 'I kind of try to stay away from that because I read when other coaches say, ‘We had a great week of practice.' Usually when you say that, you get beat on Saturday, because it's not (just) how you practice, it's how you prepare. I think there's a difference between practice and preparing.”

UNI plays at NDSU in the FargoDome at noon on Saturday.

l Comments: (319) 368-8884; jeremiah.davis@thegazette.com